Opinion: A Test for Your Coup-Friendly DNA

07/14/2015 - 09h01

Coup d´état, the plague that poisoned the Republic, has returned to daily life. There are coup-friendly genes in the purest souls. Milton Campos (1900-1972), a liberal model, served as a Justice Minister to the embarrassed dictatorship of Marshal Castello Branco.

The coup affects minds to the right or to the left. Since no one likes to be called a participant in a coup d´état, when the government one hates is brought down, another word is invented to it and the new order is welcomed.

It's always good to remember that the most stable government of national history, Pedro II´s, lasted 49 years and was born with the parliamentary coup that proclaimed his legal age when he was 14.

Here is a test with ten episodes so that each one of us can examine our DNA. Going back to the past, check the situation in which there was a coup. It may have been a parliamentary one, coming from the Congress, military, brought by tanks, or mixed.

1969: The president of the Republic, Marshal Costa e Silva, had an ischemic stroke and was incapacitated. The three military ministers called the vice president Pedro Aleixo, said he would not assume and formed a military junta. They would be called "the three stooges". Was it a coup?

1968: Marshal Costa e Silva issued Institutional Act number 5, closed the Congress and suspended civil liberties. Coup?

1964: After a military revolt, the president of the Congress declared the presidency vacant and extinguished João Goulart´s mandate. The victorious called the movement "Revolution". During the dictatorship, talking about coup could cause problems. Today, talking about "Revolution" is politically incorrect.

1961: After the resignation of Jânio Quadros, the military ministers refused to swear in João Goulart, the vice president. With the country on the brink of a civil war, within days Congress passed a parliamentary amendment which crippled Jango´s powers, who only then could take over. So far the test had been easy. Was it a coup?

1955: President Café Filho had a heart attack and the congressman Carlos Luz took over. He fired the minister of War, Henrique Lott, and within hours was deposed by troops. The Congress declared him unable to govern and the presidency was passed on to Nereu Ramos, Senate president. Café tried to reassume the presidency, the troops returned to move and Congress voted his impeachment. Was it a coup?

1945: The troops ousted dictator Getúlio Vargas, who summoned elections to choose his successor. They should be held on December 2, but Vargas was deposed in October and the president of the Federal Supreme Court took over. General Eurico Dutra was elected and in 1946 a Constituent Assembly was set up. Was it a coup?

1937: With the support of the troops, Getúlio Vargas closed the Congress, suspended the presidential election he had summoned and created the New State. Easy.

1930: A defeated candidate in the presidential election, Vargas led a revolt and the Rio de Janeiro garrison ousted president Washington Luiz. Was it a coup or was it the "Revolution of 1930"?

1891: Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca resigned and Floriano Peixoto, the vice president, assumed. The Constitution ordered new elections to be held. Floriano went all out and ruled until 1894. They called him "Iron Marshal". Did he give a coup?

1889: In the 49th year of his reign, Pedro II was overthrown by the garrison of Rio de Janeiro and banned from the country with his entire family. Republic was proclaimed. Coup?

The one who found that there was a coup in all these ten cases has something of Joaquim Nabuco or Sobral Pinto in the DNA. Fernando Henrique Cardoso detected nine cases, excluding the episode of the parliamentary amendment in 1961.

The one who saw no coup in 1889, 1930 and 1945 has an inclination to support "good coups". Who accepted the interventions in 1937, 1964, 1968 and 1969 is a duty coup maker.

In all these ten episodes listed there was an ingredient that, fortunately, left the deck in 1985 with Tancredo Neves´ election: military anarchy. Except in the 1969 coup, there was never military intervention if there weren´t civilians asking for it. In almost all of these cases, they had lost elections or were afraid of losing them.

Translated by DENISE MOTA

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