Gleisi: Three years after the coup against Dilma, country is in chaos

Three years after the coup against former president Dilma Rousseff, Brazil is before a serious financial and economic crisis and a devastating horizon for the future of the country. With democracy at risk and attacks against freedom of expression and opinion under the destruction government of Jair Bolsonaro, it has been proven that removing Dilma did nothing to improve the country. Passage of constitutional amendment 95, the cruel public expenditure cap, and the labor reform were the alleged solutions for growth to return. What we can see, however, is Brazil going downhill, hunger making a comeback, a paralyzed economy on the verge of a new recession, and the rule of law being crippled.

Dilma was removed in a fraudulent impeachment process orchestrated by the Brazilian elite bothered with the social changes that had taken place in recent years. In her last speech, as she was leaving the presidency on May 12, 2016, when the impeachment was initiated by the Senate and Dilma removed, she predicted: the accomplishments of the past 13 years were at stake. In the Lula and Dilma PT administrations there were breakthroughs: poverty alleviation, widening of the middle class, a child protection network, the youths in college and technical schools, appreciation of the minimum wage, doctors taking care of the population, the dream of one’s own house for 6 million people, the discovery of deep-water oil reserves. “What is at stake is the future of the country, the opportunity and the hope to keep moving forward”, she said.

The dismantling [of the State] project –­with fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution being undermined and the prohibition that Lula took part in the 2018 elections, with his conviction and incarceration without evidence– was set in place.

The illegitimate government of Michel Temer froze public spending for 20 years and brought Getulio Vargas’s [labor law] CLT to an end. Then came the spurious sale of strategic Brazilian assets, attempts to fully privatize the oil and energy sectors, indispensable natural riches for any nation, in an unprecedented affront to national sovereignty.

Bolsonaro supported Temer’s labor reform, which promised modernizing labor relations and generating 2 million new jobs, and today the outcome is 13 million unemployed workers and half the country’s workforce in informality or looking for jobs. This disastrous fiasco, in addition to slashing workers’ rights, prompted an increase in informality and transformed employment into self-employment, which caused Social Security contributions to fall on account of a labor market made informal.

After an election based on lies and without any debate of ideas by the candidates, Bolsonaro deepens the coup and destroys democratic accomplishments of the Brazilian people. His government acts in favor of minimal State, under a retrograde and backward ideological cloak to conceal wrongdoings, revealing its inability to return to the road of economic growth and inequality reduction. The stimulus to hatred and violence, compounded by political persecution of those who think differently, also show Bolsonaro’s sickly behavior and what his priorities are.

Moreover, he promoted the criminal cut of [cash-transfer program] Bolsa Família, ended [medical assistance program] Mais Médicos, a worldwide reference when it comes to health, by firing the Cuban professionals, stifled [housing program] Minha Casa Minha Vida, and scrapped public health. Bolsonaro also extinguished the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (Consea), the main body in charge of designing policies to fight hunger.

Bolsonaro is now conditioning the economy’s growth to the theft of the workers’ retirement pensions. It is not just the opposition that criticizes the pension reform. Experts show that the constitutional amendment bill will hurt the poorest elders, rural workers, and women. More than that, the proposal ends Social Security as provided for in the Constitution, which made it possible to set up the social welfare safety network. On top of that, the minister of the economy, Paulo Guedes, also wants to exempt the government from investing in health and education.

Brazil’s unemployment rate is at 12.7%; 13.4 million Brazilians are looking for a job, 28.5 million people are underemployed, and 4.8 million are discouraged, that is, have given up looking for employment. With the economy at a standstill and the lack of confidence in a president who has no project for the nation and in a national-destruction government, the Brazilian industry has put the brakes on in its activities. The wheel of the economy is still, and all forecasts signal that, just five months into the new government, this will be another wasted year for Brazilians.

What’s more, the government has decided to cut critical budgets, jeopardizing the functioning of public services, chiefly in the areas of human rights, culture, education, and environment. A 30-percent cut in the Brazilian universities’ current budget and investments, thus debilitating public education and compromising research and science, represents the end of times.

We are facing a dismantling of the State as has never been seen before in the country. The strength of students and teachers is a landmark in the resistance and struggle against this destructive government. The opposition supports them. We shall be together on this May 15 to fight against retrogression in Brazilian education and the abuses committed by Bolsonaro.

Gleisi Hoffmann, federal representative and national president of the Workers’ Party (PT)