Dilma Rousseff's impeachment was led by the white, wealthy men who now make up the Brazilian cabinet [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Dilma Rousseff's impeachment was led by the white, wealthy men who now make up the Brazilian cabinet

Brazil is among the most diverse countries on earth. Not since the last dictatorship has a Brazilian government been so unrepresentative of its people

Manuel Barcia Paz |
2 hours ago

When Brazil re-elected President Dilma Rousseff in 2014, I challenged the idea – shared by the Economist magazine, among others – that had the elections been determined by GDP (that is, by economic wealth) and not by universal suffrage, Rousseff would have never been re-elected. What seemed like a harmless remark back in 2014 turned into a nightmarish reality, as the president was forced out of office earlier this week.

Let’s start calling things by their name: what’s happening in Brazil today is a coup d’etat. A coup sponsored by both internal and external forces; forces that have many times before done away with democratically elected governments in Latin America, to satisfy the needs of neoliberal capitalism. Just for a quick check, remember the coups orchestrated in Venezuela in 2002, Haiti in 2004, and Honduras in 2009, under the uninterested eyes of the international community.

What we are seeing now is an impeachment process that was well in the making from the moment the validity of one of the largest democratic elections in the history of the world was questioned.

White, privileged, wealthy, male Brazilians have led the impeachment charges; those same white, privileged, wealthy, male Brazilians that used to have suffrage all for themselves – before power was wrested from their often-bloody hands by former slaves, indigenous populations, women, and LGTB groups.

More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/dilma-rousseffs-impeachment-was-led-by-the-white-wealthy-men-who-now-make-up-the-brazilian-cabinet-a7030761.html