The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff is outrageously undemocratic & certainly a rightwing thrust by the Brazilian oligarchy to move the neoliberal transformation of Brazil much faster & more aggressively. The massive protests of millions against Rousseff’s neoliberal policies alarmed them. And for good reason.
Since becoming president in 2011, Rousseff presided over several neoliberal projects including massive land grabs from indigenous tribes for multinational agribusiness which involved violent military action against them; major infrastructure projects like the Belo Monte Dam involving land grabs & environmental destruction; millions spent on building stadia & infrastructure for the World Cup & Olympic games while millions of homeless children (estimated between 7 & 30 million) are subject to vigilante violence, drug addiction, & sexual exploitation; military occupation of the urban slums; protests by millions against the neoliberal austerity measures imposed by her regime.
What is important is not her removal but the very real threat to democracy in Brazil that it represents. Whatever her youthful politics, she was fully incorporated into capitalist politics as president & is no martyr nor hero. Brazilians protesting today in her defense previously protested her policies.
The liberal regimes that replaced military juntas throughout Latin America without challenging oligarchic rule may be exhausting their political usefulness. That is the danger her impeachment represents.
(Photo of Rousseff from Reuters)