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It’s hard to catch a breath in Brazil. Just the other day President Michel Temer dodged a brick, surviving potentially job-ending charges in electoral court that he’d won his mandate with dirty campaign money. Political bulls promptly declared Temer a survivor who would not only salvage vital
political and economic reforms but also tough out his
beleaguered presidency.
But in a country where two of the last four democratically elected leaders have been ousted in disgrace, and some of the highest-ranking public officials are currently under investigation, shorting political scandals is a fool’s trade.
On June 26, chief public prosecutor Rodrigo Janot, citing “crystalline” proof, formally accused Temer of corruption, making him the country’s first sitting president to face charges of criminal conduct. Janot filed charges against Temer days after police took another round of testimony from beef baron Joesley Batista, who tarred Temer in a sting operation last month and has since said he paid off hundreds of politicians, allegedly including a presidential adviser and Temer himself.
As grave as they sound, the allegations against yet another national leader surprised no one in Brazil. After three straight years of the so-called Carwash case, Latin America’s biggest corruption investigation — with 144 executives, bureaucrats and political operators sentenced to more than 1,464 years in jail — the sight of politicians in perp walks and police choppers swooping down on mansions has become sadly routine.
And yet Temer, who denies any wrongdoing and has called Janot’s charges “fiction,” is not on the brink. A consummate dealmaker, he controls a reliable majority in Congress, where at least two-thirds of the lower house must sign off on the charges against him to send him to trial. That firewall, and maybe a bit of prosecutorial overkill, could explain why the streets are not boiling with anti-government protests, despite Temer’s dismal approval ratings.
Rather than public indifference, the apparent calm could be a sign that Brazilians are stumped. With elections 16 months away and much of the political class discredited or under scrutiny, it’s hard to say who might emerge to squire the country to recovery, much less what they will be selling.
Opinion polls aren’t much help. The early front-runners are figures Brazilians already know, led by former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the graying hopeful of the Workers’ Party, who would draw around 30% of the vote if the election were held today.
Pulling for a ringer is nothing new to Brazilians, who inherited from their colonial masters a soft spot for Sebastianism — after the fabled Portuguese monarch who perished in battle but whose redemptive return was always awaited. Instead of a savior, what Brazil could use is a radical centrist: someone fiscally literate enough to resist populist quick fixes and politically dexterous enough to avoid the temptations of crony capitalism.
Brazilians pay a third of what they earn to the government, a tax obligation so vast and vexing, it takes businesses 2,600 hours to prepare annual returns, compared with the Latin American average of 356.
“Brazil built a political system that is exceptionally vulnerable to pressure groups, who contribute handsomely to political campaigns and then demand tax incentives and contracts,” Fernando Schuler, a professor at Sao Paulo’s Insper University said. “We bet on a development model that tends to explosion.” That’s a problem that will linger much longer than Temer.
— Bloomberg