Opinion: It Is Not a Coup, But It Looks Like

09/23/2015 - 10h05

The impeachment, I read everywhere, is a legitimate and democratic instrument provided by the Constitution. Of course it can be traumatizing and exceptional, but...

But everyone says: "Screw that". Go ahead.

"Traumatic" became just an empty adjective that we use without thinking. We are living the real hoopla of impeachment, without any concern about what might happen the next day.

Very little holds Dilma Rousseff as President, but something to be taken into account are the possible reactions to her removal. Although a minority, the portion of society ready to classify it as a coup is not that small.

Conflicts around this theme, of visible radicalism and which can only be compared to President Getúlio Vargas' suicide in 1954 and the 1964 military coup, are not far from the horizon.

One might think that the impeachment would be the solution for the current political and economic crisis; on the other hand, there is reason to believe that will worsen it even more.

Suppose it will not. Members of the Workers' Party and its supporters simply comply with the impeachment, believing they have no right to protest.

There will be still unemployment and cuts in the coming years. Whoever assumes power will have to pay the price of Rousseff's current political wear and tear.

If all goes as the impeachment optimists predict, the crisis will be more or less overcome around 2017 or 2018, in a greater consensus atmosphere than it is possible nowadays.

The impeachment, now this is democratic. Yes, it's a ritual laid down in the Constitution, but let's take it slow.

In theory, any unpopular president may be removed from office if there are enough votes in Congress.

So, the more automatic the use of this weapon, the more a president's term becomes hostage of a majority of congressmen.

It is as if, in the final analysis, no president could govern with a minority in the legislature. The balance between the powers falls apart.

The price, in terms of democracy, is not small. Impeachment means to put in power someone who was not elected to this position. Okay, the vice takes over, but we know those who elected the president hardly consider the second name. Do you remember who is the vice governor of Sao Paulo?

I believe the impeachment indeed needs to be taken as what it is: something extremely rare, exceptional, which considers - as the word means - that the president is absolutely unable to hold the post.

Nowadays, the focus seems to be more on Lula da Silva and the Workers' Party than on Rousseff. She benefited indirectly from the Petrobras scheme; I think it is quite clear, but it is curious that Lula's doll is being dressed as a convict, and Rousseff's is not.

The more the argument against her is forced –breaking fiscal rules seems to be little convincing– the more the image of a coup is strengthen. Especially when the impeachment supporters were beaten in last year's election: how not to see a "third shift" in this fever?

Of course one can believe whatever one wants, but politics is not a game bid only. When you do not predict the future consequences of an initiative, irresponsibility takes over.

Translated by JULIANA CALDERARI

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