Dear friends in the US,
tomorrow, the Brazilian soon-to-become ex-president is going to New York to tell the international press in general and you in particular that she is the victim of a coup d'État.
Our Brazilian Constitution has clearly established the possibility to impeach a president. We have a specific law, ennacted since 1950, that regulates the procedures and basis upon which the chief of state can be removed from office.
In Brazil, we have a "Budget Accountability Act" (Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal), which forbids the federal government from borrowing money from public banks and issue debt without Congress approval.
We also have a specialized agency (Tribunal de Contas da Uniao - TCU) in charge of analyzing whether budget policy has been implemented within the requirements of the act. In January 2015, the TCU has issued a report stating that the president had committed a crime under the Fiscal Accountability Act.
Dilma Roussef will try to tell you (if she can put a sentence together) that she has not committed a crime because former presidents have done the same.
Apart from the legal irrelevance of her argument, what she will not say is that former presidents have never taken more than a few days to balance a few million Reais, while she has taken a total of 1% from Brazil's GDP, or 60 billion reais, from public banks, depositaries of money from individual banking accounts, that were left unpaid over more than a year.
She will also not say that previous presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula have recurred to this measure eight times combined (Fernando Henrique did it three times; Lula did it five) over a period of 16 years, while she has done this 18 times from 2011 to 2014 alone.
She will also omit that most of those expenses took place before elections.
Regardless of how they phrased it, 367 representatives out of 513 voted in favor of accepting and beginning the impeachment procedure, recognizing the so called "fiscal bicycle" measures described above a crime.
But Dilma Roussef will say that Brazil has a Coup d'État streak. She will not say that the impeachment procedures have followed all the instructions established a few months ago by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which is closely following the developments in Congress. Also, she will be silent about the fact that, out of the 11 justices in the Supreme Court, 7 where nominated by Dilma herself. Other 3 were nominated by Lula, her former boss.
She will not mention that the Federal District Attorney had two different opportunities to defend her in Congress (which he did, clumsily) before her impeachment was accepted.
Before the votes in the House of Representatives that accepted the impeachment process, three lawsuits were filed to stop the procedures, all falling to different justices, and all refused.
She will say that most of the congressmen are involved in corruption scandals, mainly the president of the lower House. She will also say that no one was able to prove she was involved in corruption scandals.
She will not say, though, that various construction companies involved in the Petrolao scandal have stated, in their leniency agreements, that they provided part of the profits obtained from Petrobras contracts for her campaign. She will not say that the first senator in the Republic to have his arrest ordered by the Supreme court for obstruction of justice (trying to facilitate the escape of one of Petrobras directors so he would not testify against former president Lula) has stated in his confession that Dilma Roussef has indicated one of the justices in the Brazilian Upper Appeals Court under the condition that he would acquit construction mogul Marcelo Odebrecht.
She will say that she did all of this so she could increase social spending in times of international economic crisis. But this is also not true. From 2016, the first programs to have payments suspended where related to education, housing and healthcare, while the Dilma Roussef Administration continued housing 37 Ministeries and 24.000 special advisors, hired without procedures or oversight. Even the funds or investment in measures against the zyca virus, with all the international attention it gathered, were cut amidst concerns that it would ruin the coming Olympics.
She will say that Brazil is divided, as if it were cut in the middle. But she will not say that in the last public manifestations, 2 Million Brazilians left their homes and went to the streets to demand for her impeachment. They did that peacefully and based on their own beliefs. On the other hand, the manifestations supporting her government failed to gather 200 thousand people. Later on, it was also revealed that a large number of those people were there because they were paid by labour unions connected to the government's party.
So, as Dilma Roussef comes to tell these things, please reply to her as the majority of Brazilians already have:
"Please go home, former president."
