Brazil: Impeachment process suspended by Supreme Court

The Minister of the Supreme Federal Court, Luiz Edson Fachin, has suspended the impeachment process against President Dilma Roussef until the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court on December 16, which means the Chamber of Deputies cannot proceed with the process.

While a lot has been written in the international press about the impeachment process, the silent majority in Brazil has stated from the beginning that the Impeachment process against President Dilma was nothing more than a political process motivated by sour grapes from the right, desperate to regain power after four consecutive victories of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, whose policies have moved millions of Brazilians out of poverty.

Movement to remove Cunha from office

Now, a movement has been launched to process the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha (from the political party PMDB - Rio de Janeiro) for having lost the necessary legitimacy to preside over the Chamber. The document today in circulation among political, artistic and intellectual circles in Brazil is called Manifestation in Defense of Democratic Institutions. To date, the document has been signed by political and intellectual heavyweights from the elite in Brazil. It claims that the democratic institutions in Brazil are being tested (based on the precept that President Dilma was democratically elected in a free and fair vote for her second four-year term in 2014 (she took office on January 1, 2015).

"Since the election in 2014 we have lived through a great political instigation which has run through the most diverse human and social relations", states the Manifestation. It continues: "This situation has gained new ingredients after the election of Eduardo Cunha to the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies and especially after he was denounced by the Federal Public Ministry (Attorney-General's Office) for his involvement in acts of corruption, having bank accounts abroad and hiding his personal patrimony".

Political revenge and retaliation

And in retaliation, Cunha, it is stated, started the personal vendetta against President Dilma, no doubt backed by the reactionary right-wing and crypto-Fascist elites which lost power at the turn of the century when Lula's Partido dos Trabalhadores swept into power on a wave of popular euphoria, changing the geo-political standing of Brazil, hitherto a sleeping giant and placing the country on the map.

The intellectuals who signed the manifestation claim that Cunha and his supporters tried an illegal coup d'état out of revenge and against all the democratic processes in existence in Brazil.

Those who stated from the beginning that Dilma would stay unruffled are now predicting that the tables will be turned on those who lost power and want it back at any cost.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

Brazil

([email protected])

*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.