The Rise and Fall of Dilma Vana Rousseff
Aravind Krishnan
Update(1st September 2016): On 31st August 2016, in a historic judgement session, Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment was approved by the Brazilian Senate by 61 votes to 20, nine months after the ex-speaker Eduardo Cunha, started the process in the Lower House. Vice president Michel Temer took the oath, the same day, as the new president of Brazil to complete the current term till 2018.
Brasilia: It is early hours of a Sunday morning and the dawn chorus are just starting in the capital of Brazil, Brasilia. Dressed in red pullovers and black tracks, with cycling helmet, sports sneakers and black goggles in a tranquil neighborhood with smiling face and fresh mood, the president of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff gets out to bike followed closely by three body guards. This was the scene in the morning of the day when she went on cycling while the lower house of the Brazilian parliament voted in favor of her impeachment proceedings for fiscal irregularities in her government’s accounts. Today, 12th May 2016, the constitutionally powerful upper house of the Brazilian parliament, the Senate, also voted (55 to 22 votes) in favor of starting impeachment trials against her, thus, suspending her for the next 180 days. Vice-president Michel Temer, her ex-ally, will be the acting president of Brazil during the next 180 days. After the trials the Senate will formally vote for her impeachment. A two-thirds of vote (54 votes of 81 senators) favoring her impeachment will force her to step down officially as the president of Brazil while Michel Temer will take over from her to complete the presidential term till 2018. Unfortunately, her impeachment seems inevitable. Did she falter or was it a political conspiracy against her? What could have led to the fall of Dilma Rousseff after 6 years in power? Let us dive deep into the life of Dilma Rousseff to understand about her rise and fall as a political leader.
Who is Dilma Rousseff?
In 1929, a young lawyer affiliated to the communist party of Bulgaria fled his homeland in fear of political persecution. After having lived in short stints in France and Argentina, Pétar Stefanov Rúsev managed to settle in Sao Paulo where he started to run his own business. Having gotten married to Dilma Jane Silva, Pétar Russév decided to naturalize as a Brazilian and adapt his name to Portuguese, Pedro Rousseff. The couple had three children, Igor, Dilma Vana and Zana Lúcia. Pedro Rousseff was making good money in his business and the Rousseffs were able to afford a high middle class life style. Pedro Rousseff passed away in 1962. In 1965 Dilma Vana Rousseff cracked the entrance exam of Estadual Central School (today known as Governor Milton Campos State School). Apart from starting her schooling, she associated herself with the student’s union that was organizing movements against the military rule also known as the 1964 Brazilian coup d’état. This became her first relationship with Politics.
Armed revolution, for democracy, against the coup
In 1967, she joined POLOP (Organização Revolucionária Marxista Política Operária), an extra-parliamentary opposition that was trying hard to bring down the military rule in Brazil. The organization had two active divisions, the one that defended and demanded for a constitutional assembly and the other that was into armed revolution against the military coup. Dilma tried her hand at the first division but ended up in the second which later merged with COLINA ( Comando de Libertação Nacional), an extreme left organization involved in guerrilla warfare against the military rule.
Cláudio Galeno Linhares, who presented Dilma to POLOP, was enchanted with her beauty, personality and intelligence. He says “we fell in love, dated for some time and then got married. It was only a civil marriage with a small party for close friends.” Soon, Dilma Rousseff married like-minded Claúdio Galeno. 66 years old doctor, Apolo Heringer, used to teach classes on Marxism to Dilma in her school. He says that “Dilma always had the charisma and the capacity to be a leader. She had the right skills to get everyone’s attention in important meetings surrounded by bossy men. Dilma was very impressed by Rocha Guido, who strongly defended the fight for a constitutional assembly, and his work”
In 1969 COLINA had a handful of weapons, little money and the willingness of a few young militants. It started to become active in bank robberies, carjackings and bombing of houses of local authorities in Minas Gerais. Thus, Dilma started her fugitive life style and dropped out of UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais) where she was studying economics. She also got separated from Cláudio Galeno and started living in Porto Alegre, a city in the South of Brazil. Here she met with Carlos Araújo, a leftist militant and a lawyer, with whom Dilma has her only child, Paula Rousseff Araújo.
In 1970 she was arrested in Sao Paulo and was taken to Oban (Operação Bandeirantes), center for information and investigation formed by the then military regime to combat the leftist movements against the military rule. Here she was allegedly tortured for days with spanking paddle, punches and electric shocks. Recently, in her testimony she has denounced the torture and has also given names of the military officers who participated in the act. Her 6 years and 1-month prison term was later reduced and she was released in the end of 1972.
Entry in to The Worker’s Party (PT)
After her release, she moved back to Porto Alegre where she graduated in Economics from UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul). In the 80s and 90s she worked in the Rio Grande do Sul state government for the Democratic Labor Party (PDT). In 1989 she campaigned for the presidential candidate Leonel Brizola of PDT in the first round and in the second round for Lula da Silva of Worker’s Party (PT).
In 2001 she left PDT and affiliated herself with the worker’s party. In 2003, under the leadership of then President Lula da Silva, she took oath as the Minister of Mining and Energy. She was adept in handling issues and her program, Luz para Todos (Light for All) was principle in her becoming the Ministra-Chefe da Casa Civil (Prime Minister) in 2005. She was also named by Lula to be the head of Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). She was always known for having a centralized profile and strong management tactics. In 2009 she was diagnosed for a lymphatic cancer, was treated and cured of it in September 2009.
With Lula stongly backing Dilma Rousseff to be his presidential candidate for the 2010 election, the worker’s party along with their allies unanimously accepted her to be their presidential candidate along with Michel Temer running for vice-president. She had a successful election campaign running for the presidential seat in 2010 by beating Jose Serra of PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party), in the second round, who only managed 44% of the votes. In 2011 when she took oath, she became the first Women President of Brazil. She was once again re-elected in 2014 in a closely fought presidential election that saw her winning over Aécio Neves of PSDB by just 3% of votes in the second round.
Ever since she was re-elected for her second term in 2014, she has been surrounded by myriads of problems on every possible front. The Brazilian economy, heavily dependent on commodities plummeted, corruption charges were levied upon her party’s top politicians who were involved in the country’s worst graft case with the state owned oil firm, Petrobras, inflation and unemployment were at their peak, while PT’s allies were deserting them for various political reasons and a fiscal irregularity case was filed against her, which was accepted in the parliament by her own ally, Eduardo Cunha.
Locking horns with Eduardo Cunha
Aggravating the political crises in the country, Dilma Rousseff, in the early December last year, locked horns, with the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha of PMDB. PMDB at that time was politically allied with Dilma Rousseff’s worker’s party. Eduardo Cunha, has allegedly been involved in the Petrobras’ graft case, the countries’ biggest money laundering and political kickback scandal, and was worn out after revelations of his secret bank accounts in Switzerland. Dilma Rousseff’s worker’s party (PT) announced its decision to vote against Eduardo Cunha, their ally, in the lower house’s ethics council. Later in the same day, Eduardo Cunha used his main trump card to react to this by accepting one of the impeachment requests.
Being the speaker of the lower house of the Brazilian parliament, Eduardo Cunha, had the power to decide on opening of the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff. The speaker received various impeachment requests, to be precise 34 of them, and decided to reject all but one request which was from one of the founders of the worker’s party, Helio Bicudo, a lawyer and ex-congressman, now a part of the opposition. The request was also endorsed by jurist Miguel Reale Junior and jurist Janaina Paschoal and talked about the fiscal irregularities that were committed by the government without parliament’s approval and about acts that were not complying with the national budget law. Eduardo Cunha said that the protests and manifestation by the people were not left in vain and that he has heard the voices of the streets.
Decorative Vice-President
In December last year a letter sent out by the vice president, Michel Temer, to President Dilma Rousseff made the headlines for his personal worry about being treated as a decorative vice president over the 6 years of Dilma Rousseffs’ presidency. A few people also mocked him as a mop cleaner who is used by the president and her party to clean the dirt she leaves with her allies. Michel Temer’s name was also mentioned in a couple of graft cases. Michel Temer was quick enough to figure out his modus operandi together with Eduardo Cunha in plotting Dilma Rousseff’s and PT’s fall. In a couple of her recent speeches she has called them as conspirators and traitors. Thus, she lacked the knack to build political relationships with her allies.
Leaked tapes and her deep unpopularity
Ex-president Lula da Silva has been under investigation in the Petrobras graft case by Judge Sergio Moro. When Sergio Moro was contemplating for Lula’s preventive arrest, Dilma offered a ministerial post for him thus shielding him from arrest as ministers can only be arrested on Supreme court’s order. Sergio Moro quickly ordered for the release of the telephone recordings of Lula. These tapes soured PT’s relationship with its allies. In one of the tapes, the famous conversation between Lula and Dilma, Dilma is heard saying that she is sending the ministerial oath papers signed by her, as the president of Brazil, to Lula while asking him to use it when required. This generated a big public repercussion against Lula, Dilma and PT and the public, with support of the opposition, once again went on to the streets in millions to protest against corruption and called for the president to step down. She became deeply unpopular among Brazilians.
Dilma Rousseff has already had a glimpse of her unpopularity in Brazil right before the 2013 football confederation cup in June. Millions of Brazilians from all classes of lifestyle frustrated by the federal government’s lackadaisical approach to curb corruption and ostentatious spending on world cup stadiums, instead of spending on hospitals, schools and public infrastructure, took on to the streets to protest. But in 2014 Brazil gave her another chance and voted for her. Soon, in 2015, the protests started again with the opposition behind most of the protests. This clearly shows that, Dilma Rousseff failed to learn from her mistakes and was not able to jell with the people of Brazil.
A silent coup
Dilma Rousseff has always maintained that she has not committed any crime or illegal act or did not misuse public money. She has even called this impeachment proceedings against her as a silent coup against a democratically elected government. In her speech yesterday after the senate’s decision to put her under impeachment trail, she said, “The impeachment process does not only put my mandate at stake but also the county’s respect to the polls, the sovereign will of the Brazilian people and the Constitution. Also at stake are the achievements of the past 13 years of PT’s government, the poor people’s advances towards a better middle class life, young people getting in to universities and technical schools, valorization of minimum wage, doctors treating and attending people for free, the dream of buying a house with My Home My Life program.” She also continued that, “I did not commit any crimes or have foreign accounts or have received paybacks. This is an unjust process and a conspiration against an honest and innocent person. It is the toughest of the brutalities that can be committed against any human being: punish someone for a crime she did not commit.”
What could have gone wrong?
As Dilma rousseff continues with her early morning exercise, biking her way forward into the sun light will she be thinking on what could have gone wrong for the majority of the lower and upper houses of the Brazilian parliament to vote against her? Will she be thinking on how a few corrupt politicians in her worker’s party and selecting a few wrong allies has led to her down fall? Will she be thinking that she could have selected her finance ministers wisely to avoid these fiscal irregularities for which she is being impeached for? Will she also repent not to have jelled enough with the people of Brazil and with her political allies in her last 6 years in power? Will she be thinking about the partisan press that has always sided against her and her party? Or will she just be thinking of giving it up?
In the last few weeks, it was evident that the parties which PT was to bank on were slowly moving away from them or even plotting their downfall leaving Dilma Rousseff and PT to face the impeachment proceedings alone. Her ex-allies together with the opposition were already in talks to form a new government upon her fall. Even though Dilma Rousseff has the capacity and qualities to be a leader and rose from being an immigrant’s daughter to a country’s president, the dirty and the ugly side of politics has defeated her for now.
Update(1st September 2016): On 31st August 2016, in a historic judgement session, Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment was approved by the Brazilian Senate by 61 votes to 20, nine months after the ex-speaker Eduardo Cunha, started the process in the Lower House. Vice president Michel Temer took the oath, the same day, as the new president of Brazil to complete the current term till 2018.
