But the oozing corruption of Temer's ministers has sometimes served to obscure his own. He, too, is implicated in several corruption investigations. And now, he has been formally convicted of violating election laws and, as punishment, is banned from running for any political office for eight years. Yesterday, a regional election court in Sรฃo Paulo, where he's from, issued a formal decree finding him guilty and declaring him "ineligible" to run for any political office as a result of now having a "dirty record" in elections. Temer was found guilty of spending his own funds on his campaign in excess of what the law permits.
Last night at an event in Rio de Janeiro, I was asked โ as I always am at such events โ about possible U.S. involvement in the change of government. Here are four minutes of my answer:
Comment: Brazil is part of BRICS, an international, multi-polar, socio-political and economic alliance the US is determined to dismantle.
See also: The Brazil fingerprint: Just look at who is to be installed as president and finance chiefs
In the scope of the scheming, corruption, and illegality from this interim government, Temer's law-breaking is not the most severe offense. But it potently symbolizes the anti-democratic scam that Brazilian elites have attempted to perpetrate. In the name of corruption, they have removed the country's democratically elected leader and replaced her with someone who โ though not legally barred from being installedโ is now barred for eight years from running for the office he wants to occupy.
Just weeks ago, Dilma's impeachment appeared inevitable. Brazil's oligarchical media had effectively focused attention solely on her. But then, everyone started looking at who was engineering her impeachment, who would be empowered, what their motives were โ and everything changed. Now her impeachment, though still likely, does not look nearly as inevitable: Last week, O Globo reported that two senators previously in favor were now re-considering in light of "new facts" (the revealed tapes of Temer's ministers), and yesterday, Folha similarly reported that numerous senators are considering changing their minds. Notably, Brazilian media outlets stopped publishing polling data about the public's views of Temer and Dilma's impeachment.
Meanwhile, opposition grows to this attack on democracy both domestically and internationally. Protests aimed at Temer are becoming increasingly large and intense. Two dozen members of the British Parliament denounced impeachment as a coup. Three dozen members of the European Parliament urged termination of trade negotiations with Brazil's interim government on the ground that it lacks legitimacy. The anti-corruption group Transparency International announced it was terminating dialogue with the new government until it purged corruption from its new ministries. The New York Times this week, reporting on the resignation of the anti-corruption minister only 20 days after he was installed, described it as "another blow to a government that seems to limp from one scandal to the next just weeks after Mr. Temer replaced Dilma Rousseff."
But perhaps nothing quite captures the dangerous farce that Brazilian elites are attempting to perpetrate like the fact that their chosen leader is now literally banned from running for the office into which he has been installed because he has been convicted of breaking the law. This isn't merely the destruction of democracy in the world's fifth most populous country, nor the imposition of an agenda of privatization and attacks on the poor for the benefit of international plutocrats. It's literally the empowerment of dirty, corrupt operators โ outside of democratic norms โ cynically undertaken in the name of combating corruption.
Comment: Temer is known as the "captain of the coup". He was involved in the Petrobas kickbacks of which bribery payments have allegedly gone to Temer and his party. He is also implicated in an illegal ethanol-purchase scheme, the recipient of secret payments for contract favors. Only 2 percent of voters say they would vote for him, while 58% would impeach him. His political days are numbered. With Rousseff also in jeopardy, how does this 'void at the top' for B of BRICS appeal to US machinations? Going as planned?