Brazil’s Federal Accounts Court decision was the coup’s swansong

By Miguel do Rosario, Editor of Cafezinho.

(Translation by Eduardo Pagnoncelli).

A few friends and readers of the blog are scared of the coup d’êtat-like atmosphere that was generated after the decision made by Brazil’s Federal Accounts Court, the TCU.

Easy, please! Don’t fall for the media’s terrorism and the haters.

The TCU’s decision was a foretold story. The political world had already accepted that the rejection of President Dilma Rousseff’s 2014 public accounts was going to pass.

But that’s not enough to take a president down.

A few days ago the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo published – and O Cafezinho reposted – a very enlightening interview with jurist Marcelo Lavenerè, responsible for the impeachment petition of former president Fernando Collor. Mr. Lavenerè pointed out that the watchdog cannot call for an impeachment. The account’s rejection was a strictly political decision, almost a recommendation for the government to “behave” better next year.

We shouldn’t act ingenuously, however. It was all meticulously calculated. A few days after having a secret meeting with the heads of TV Globo, the president of Brazilian Lower House, Eduardo Cunha, decided to promote a fast-track voting of past government’s yearly accounts, in order to “clear the way” for voting the approval – or not – of president Dilma’s accounts.

An important remark: this kind of voting by the Congress hasn’t happened since Getulio Vargas was Brazil’s president, in 1937. That demonstrates how exceptionally antidemocratic are the current times we are experiencing in Brazil, with a clear and dirty alliance between the pro-coup judiciary and the pro-coup media.

Nevertheless, the TCU today’s “show” was nothing but the coup’s swansong, and the last trump card that the opposition parties had to play.

Today the coup started to die out, and that is the reason behind such hysteria. The pro-coup agents want to leave in great style. Setting off fireworks, if possible.

Still to come, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) analysis of Dilma’s presidential campaign accounts is another chapter of this imbroglio, but that will take longer and it won’t need to be countersigned by Brazil’s lower house, like the TCU’s decision. I personally don’t believe that the TSE would be capable of unseating a president who was elected by 54 million people, which would consequently put the lower house president Eduardo Cunha in power.

It would be illogical. It would be too “Honduran”, even for Brazil’s most extreme pro-coup agents.

The “coupometre” that measures the risk of a coup in Brazil has hit its highest mark today, around 15 points, and it could still get higher in the next couple of days. But it should go back to its normal rates by next week and start gradually decreasing in the following weeks, returning to more acceptable levels that will allow us to restore the democratic stability that we all hope for.

The government was lucky enough to promote a cabinet reform that will guarantee at least a minimal support to stop an eventual impeachment process on the lower house, and especially in the Senate (upper house). The opposition parties will still bid for a coup, of course. But they are bound to lose.

Currently it is said that the government has 220 faithful deputies, and the possibility to amass even more support, while the opposition has less than 290 deputies, and they would need a total of 340 to ultimately approve president Dilma’s impeachment. On the other side of the parliament is the upper house, where the final decision for the impeachment would be taken. And among the senators the government’s support is even larger. The opposition would need the backing of 2/3 of the upper house, though they are far from that.

The eventual impeachment voting session would take place in the upper house. However, it wouldn’t be presided by its president Renan Calheiros, but by Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF) president.

But let’s consider this remote possibility, only for the love of debating. What would actually happen if the opposition, helped by the media, took down president Dilma’s government? Would they be removing from power not only a government that was elected and re-elected, but also a political party that has won four consecutive presidential elections and has thousands of city counsellors, federal and state deputies, senators, mayors, governors, and millions of militants and supporters?

Former president Lula is Brazil’s most popular politician and a highly admired figure across the world. Can you imagine what would happen if Lula started to report to international courts and tribunal s of justice – he would certainly do that in case the coup d’état really happened – what the right-wing media is doing to democracy in Brazil?

The opposition and the media’s reputation would certainly be stained, and they would have to carry that weight for 50 more years.

It would be another stain for the opposition, after supporting the military dictatorship. Minister Augusto Nardes, who handled the government’s accounts case in the Accounts Court is a former deputy from Arena, the party that supported the military dictatorship. He is a right-wing man, a born pro-coup individual, who has spent the last few weeks talking to the media and anticipating his final decision, intimidating his Accounts Court’s peers, in a clear campaign against the government.

TV Globo, the actual heart and soul of the coup, was founded after receiving a huge amount of money from the dictatorship government and consolidated itself by supporting the arbitrary decisions of the government. One more coup against democracy, engendered by the same political actors that stood up for the 1964 coup, would certainly weaken their political influence in the long term.

The country will still be amid turmoil in the next few months. But we have to remain calm. And never believe the media.

If the right-wings who have been defeated in the last election make the historic mistake of sponsoring another coup, they will have to face a fierce opposition from the most progressive sectors of society.

Mr. Lavanerè, the jurist who supported the impeachment of former president Collor was very clear when he stated that “today, in Brazil, many important and renowned jurists see no legal nor political reason for president Dilma to be ousted”. Even after the TCU’s decision.

Thus the impeachment would be a coup, according to Mr. Lavanerè. Personally I think this interview has been responsible to bury the coup process, as it shows that it is something that cannot succeed against the objection of so many relevant jurists, journalists, intellectuals and politicians.

No government would be able to rule under such strong criticism. Unless they make use of violence, which would end up creating an even worse situation for them. In 1964 the military government intimidated and murdered people, censored voices and opinions and revoked mandates, all in the name of a so called political stability.

In this present moment in history the right-wings won’t be able to do any of that. And the media won’t use the excuse that the government is censoring them. Instead they would have to create an auto-censorship, even more shameless than the one that they use nowadays.

Newspapers and TV channels would have to drown in their own lies, fire their critics, and hide crime reports. That means they would be digging their own grave.

Would they stop forward thinking politicians, jurists and intellectuals from talking and appearing on their pages, radios and TV channels denouncing the coup?

Would there be a clampdown on student and union leaders?

What about the internet? How would they silent the internet, a naturally rebel and democratic forum? The media’s supporters, the cheap fascists, would leave the stage after the coup.

How would they shut up this huge and noisy left-wing militancy, the same militancy that has won four consecutive elections after fighting epic online battles?

At the time Fernando Collor was ousted, the jurists were unanimously supportive of his impeachment. Now, when it comes to Dilma, they are not. The best and more forward thinking jurists are all standing to reassure the legitimacy of the president’s mandate, given to her by 54 million voters.

There won’t be a coup!

And if they infamously try to carry out this antidemocratic project, the world’s most respected Brazilians will report them internationally.

All the Latin-American presidents and all the progressive Latin-American individuals will stand up against the coup, because they know very well how dishonest and truculent the pro-business right-wings are in this continent of ours.

It would be a worldwide crisis!

The whole world would be shocked to watch a democratic nation of 202 million inhabitants be sullied by a bunch of corrupt crooks, which is what the actual leaders of this potential coup are. Being unable to accept the election result, they are now trying the most unethical behind-the-scenes manoeuvres with the support of the most pro-coup and partisan media in the whole world.