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Brazil Devolves Into Full-Blown Political Crisis With Launch Of Impeachment Proceedings Against President Rouseff
Just when the Brazilian depression (as we first called it in December 2014 and as Goldman confirmed a year later) appeared that it couldn't get any worse, especially in the aftermath of the BTG Pactual scandal which saw the CEO of Brazil's "Goldman Sachs" arrested last week, the bottom fell out of the floor for Brazil following news that the long awaited impeachment proceedings against Dilma Rouseff would actually begin, despite expectations they would be delayed into 2016.
Moments ago Brazil lower house chief Eduardo Cunha announced that he has accepted an impeachment request filed by Helio Bicudo. Cunha told reporters in Brasilia that the decision is not political, and while one can debate that, the implications will have a tremendous impact on both Brazil's political situation not to mention its already imploding economy (Really Eduardo? You accept an impeachment request a few hours after you learn that the Workers' Party will support an investigation into possible graft on your part and it "isn't political?").
To be sure, the writing was on the wall all day.
Earlier, the Workers’ Party said lawmakers are set to vote in favor of a motion to open an investigation into Cunha’s role in the Carwash corruption probe. The ethics committee is set to vote next week.
As we noted in October, this has essentially always been a race against time to see if the house ethics committee will force Cunha’s resignation before he can secure the lower house support to initiate a Senate impeachment trial.
Wanting to get out ahead of the committee, Cunha moved to accept an impeachment request.
As Bloomberg adds, Cunha told reporters in Brasilia on Wednesday he "profoundly regrets" what’s happening. "May our country overcome this process." The impeachment process could take months, involving several votes in Congress that ultimately may result in the president’s ouster. Rousseff would challenge any impeachment proceedings in the Supreme Court, according to a government official with direct knowledge of her defense strategy.
The speaker’s decision will put the president’s support in Congress to a test after government and opposition spent months trying to rally lawmakers to their sides. The move also threatens to paralyze Rousseff’s economic agenda as she focuses on saving her political life rather than reviving growth. Her ouster would mark the downfall of the ruling Workers’ Party that won global renown for lifting tens of millions from poverty before becoming ensnared in Brazil’s largest-ever corruption scandal.
Accusations that top members of her party accepted bribes, coupled with surging consumer prices and rising unemployment, have driven Rousseff’s approval rating to record lows. The majority of Brazilians in public opinion polls agreed that Congress should open impeachment proceedings against the president.
As noted above, Cunha himself is facing allegations that he accepted kickbacks and hid the money in overseas accounts. The lower house ethics committee is considering whether to open a probe that could result in his removal from office. His decision today comes after Workers’ Party members on the committee agreed Dec. 2 to vote in favor of investigating Cunha. The speaker denies wrongdoing.
More details from Bloomberg:
Backed by Brazil’s leading opposition parties, the impeachment request accuses Rousseff of breaching Brazil’s fiscal responsibility law in 2014 and 2015. The country’s top auditors in October recommended Congress reject her accounts, saying the administration used fiscal maneuvers to hide a budget deficit last year. The government has denied wrongdoing.
The petition accepted by Cunha goes to a special committee made up of all political parties that must issue a recommendation whether impeachment hearings should start.
The lower house then votes on the committee’s report. If two-thirds of the deputies back impeachment, hearings would begin in the Senate. In that case, Rousseff would have to step down and hand over the reins to Vice President Michel Temer. He would remain in power if the Senate impeaches Rousseff or step aside if she is absolved.
Rousseff’s ruling coalition on paper has enough members in Congress to block impeachment hearings from starting in the Senate. Yet members of the alliance frequently dissent from the president. Cunha himself is a member of the largest allied party, though he said in July he would oppose Rousseff and has since orchestrated some of her biggest legislative defeats.
In other words, what was until now a full-blown political and economic crisis just got even worse.
As a reminder this is the country where a sweeping corruption investigation into state-owned oil company Petrobras has already implicated some of the country’s most powerful politicians and businessmen with the latest to be dragged into the probe being Andre Esteves, the head of the "Goldman of Brazil" investment bank BTG Pactual, who was arrested last month.
Yesterday Brazil also just reported its biggest GDP drop on record which hardly helped Rouseff's case to push through more fiscal austerity measures. At this point it is clear that all budgetary plans are officially dead. Put differently, there's no respite for Brazil and between the forthcoming investigation into Cunha, the impeachment threat for Rousseff, and the extreme paranoia that will now permeate the legislature thanks to the arrest of Amaral, you can kiss the primary surplus dream goodbye.
Finally this is the country hosting next year's Olympics: at the rate it is going, it just may announce in the last moment the Olympics have been cancelled. We wonder if there is a Plan B for when Rio throws in the towel?
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If only the US congress had the stones to do that to Barry I might actually plan to stay in the US.
She's just another BRIC in the wall.
Obummer is just another dick on the wall.
Barry knows a good glory hole when he sees one. Usually at the golf course, which upsets his wookie to the point the wookie goes on vacation.
If they got good lobsters down there, she's on her way.
"Well, guess we can't raise the discount rate, now..."
--Janice Yellen
The psychopath vs. The sociopath live and in color.......
Bye Bye Brazil? No.
I lived there 25 years ago when annual inflation more than 1000 percent.
"At that time--1989/1990--few tourists traveled to Brazil. Rio was considered the most dangerous city in the world, with around 2,000-3,000 murders annually. If that weren't enough, inflation for 1989 was about 1,200% annually, as I recall. Each day you would see the value of the currency plummet in myriad ways. The daily newspapers (there were six) carried headline announcements, of course. Items in stores were often marked with three or four different prices and often whole shelves were emptied of a single item because smart shoppers knew the price would soon double.
"I would walk or bus wherever I went. At the bus stop, I'd see money--coins & currency--scattered in the gutter. For the first couple of days, I'd pick up large and shiny coins and stare at their dates. A former coin collector, I'd wonder why a coin minted only a year ago now lay in the gutter. Valueless, my Brazilian friends would tell me, like the government. They had a few wonderful words--"safados"--scoundrels or "ladrones," which meant thieves, to classify their political leaders."
Money--Funny, Scary, Paper Money"They had a few wonderful words--"safados"--scoundrels or "ladrones," which meant thieves, to classify their political leaders.""
Nothing has changed. The political elites are still all safados.
As someone who still has v/strong links with Brazil since about 1990, I recognise much of what you say about prices and inflation in those heady days.
" O Brasil, o país do futuro e sempre será "
"Rio was considered the most dangerous city in the world, with around 2,000-3,000 murders annually"
A gun free zone no doubt.
"If that weren't enough, inflation for 1989 was about 1,200% annually, as I recall."
A gold free zone no doubt.
"A gun free zone no doubt."
Well, yes. Citizens are unarmed. The people with guns are the countless criminals, drug lords in the favelas and police militar. Hard to spot the difference much of the time.
The current craze all over Brazil is for crooks with 4X4 pick-up trucks hooking up and ripping ATMs out of the walls of the banks and stealing them.
"The people with guns are the countless criminals, drug lords in the favelas and police militar."
That is a gun free zone.
"Hard to spot the difference much of the time."
Don't worry citizen, it's under control.
@smacker
As I mentioned already:
"Brazil: Eternal Promise"
translation
Brazil: Never Ending Oligarchy, Corruption and Ultimate Disaster
That does it. As of today, I am officially appointing myself as ZeroHedge Brazilian branding and imaging specialist. Enjoy:
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1908353_1905453,00.html
Hired.
they are 12, go to jail
sounds Jewish...and laundering money through a car wash, very Borough Park
Can't they just issue another $0.7 trillion in debt in one month just like US did?
I just looked because I was curious. It was in the early 80s that the TOTAL Fed budget was about that.
"We wonder if there is a Plan B for when Rio throws in the towel?"
Of course there is: switch on TV Globo, watch "A Regra do Jogo" and pour a glass or two of Cachaça.
(not one of Globo's best novellas I might add)
Coup ! Golpe ! Fora PT, gangsters, mafiososs. Tomorow Bovespa will blow up 10% !
Coup ! Golpe ! Fora PT, gangsters, mafiososs. Tomorow Bovespa will blow up 10% !
Brazil is eleven different kinds of screwed, including a severe drought the article doesn't mention. In addition to all the political and economic problems, Sao Paulo, the world's eight largest city, is running out of water.
Cunha : allegedly involved in "operation carwash"...is supposed to have scammed 40 M $ from Petrobras for his evangelical church.
What evangelical has to do with car wash is an enigma. But then God's ways are unfathomable; otherwise he would be Aristotle and not the bearded ONE !
But if Money and power are at par with God; that explains why 40 M goes further than being a man who passes heterosexual affirmative activist legislation to say his evangelical dick is mightier than a woman's clit.
Now I don't think God would argue with that but Dilma...needs to be Impeached 'cos she might fight it. Not going to jail for car wash scam and not failing the Divine Order of Heterosexual bearded one then dovetails perfectly.
Dilma to the pillory box!
Dude, cleanliness is next to godliness.
And her name was Dilma Rouseff.
Dilma Rouseff and her predecessor can do nothing without these people:
Jorge Paulo Lemann is still the richest man in Brazil
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2015/03/02/brazils-richest-p...
By the way, Walter Salles the filmmaker, who flopped with "On The Road" a few years ago, is worth over 3 billion dollars thanks to his family fortune.
If I was the runner up for the Olympic bid, I might starting mowing the grass in my stadiums.
"Brazil: Eternal Promise"
translation
Brazil: Never Ending Oligarchy, Corruption and Ultimate Disaster
Kirchner? Rouseff? How the hell did all these criminal South American politicians get jewish surnames?
Don Kirchner's Rock Concert, featuring Sarah Rouseff on the keyboard
Don't you know anything about Brazil?
If Congress only had the balls to do that in the US.
Pity.
About time! What time does she hang?
Oh Escarvahhh, come out and play-ehhh ;-)
You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking, because you sure don’t know how to spell slave in Portuguese... Well, I am the only slave here?
So you must be talkin’ to me.
You advocate slavery as an outspoken, Statist bootlicker.
"Escrava" of course means you are feminine.
Any country that has central banking system & stock exchange can be broken by west
becuz west has unlimited money (QE)
while developing nations do hard work to make money
Countries like Brazil should quit the Fed. linked central banking system & SWIFT
& start doing most business with BRICS economies
It is not understood , those countries having resources , oil, energy, technology, expertise, manpower , minerals etc ARE FAILING