On Wednesday, August 31st, 2016, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil was impeached. Brazil’s senators voted to remove the President from office, after it was revealed she was breaking budgeting laws. This has caused an internal conflict in Brazil between those in support of the impeachment, and the anti-impeachment activists, that lead to riot police having to separate the groups by using tear gas. The majority of Brazilians wanted her out of office not for the reason she was convicted, but instead because they believed she was an arrogant leader.
President Dilma Rousseff was convicted of breaking budgetary laws by delaying payments to state banks and manipulating the federal budget to conceal the nation’s economic problems. For 13 years, Brazil’s economy has been booming, and lifted millions of people into the middle class and raised Brazil onto the global stage. However, in recent years Brazil has suffered many corruption scandals and due to this Brazil has suffered through an economic crisis, which the government has taken no action to correct.
For many the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff seemed like it was the right course of action to take because political leadership has not tried to help Brazil’s economic crisis. But, a lot has to change to encourage citizens to have confidence in Brazil’s government leaders. If things stay the way they are the public will not stand it. Action needs to be taken by government leaders to help start an economic boom.
The ironic thing is that many government officials that are involved in the Senate (which voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff) are believed to be involved in the manipulation of the federal budget. President Rousseff belongs to the leftist Workers’ Party, the members of which are believed to be involved in a corruption scheme that took billions of dollars and funneled them into political campaigns and offshore bank accounts. Plus, the majority of senators in Brazil’s senate belong to the leftist Workers’ Party that voted for President Rousseff’s impeachment.
President Rousseff was never accused of using Brazil’s presidential office for personal gains which leads some anti-impeachment activists to have doubts surrounding the real reasons she was voted out of office. Even though Rousseff was in office for 13 years and she made a great expansion of policies for the equality of the people and to help with poverty relief. President Dilma Rousseff’s believes that she did what was right for the Brazilian people, despite the fact she harbored information about the terrible economic crisis.
Now, President Rousseff is no longer in office and Brazil has new leadership under President Michael Temer. President Michael Temer plans on reversing Rousseff’s policies to help revive the economy. We can only hope and wait out to see how President Michael Temer’s proposed actions will affect Brazil’s economy for the better.
