Brazil developments amount to simple game with support from external forces: Expert

Press TV has interviewed Shobhan Saxena, a journalist and political commentator from Sao Paulo, about the reaction of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on her impeachment.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We just heard Dilma Rousseff call this whole process as a process without substance. Do you see it that way too?

Saxena: Yeah I think what is unfolding in Brazil at the moment is an enormous farce, because of president who has no corruption allegation against her is being impeached by the speaker of the lower house who faces a lot of corruption cases. He’s embroiled in a number of corruption scandals. He has Swiss bank accounts. His name figures in Panama Papers, but nothing is being done against him. And secondly, the vice president Michel Temer, who will take place of Dilma Rousseff in case she’s impeached, is himself a very controversial figure and also involved in several corruption scandals.

And moreover, the congress members, more than 300 congress members, who voted for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff are themselves involved in many corruption scandals. So what’s happening here is all the corrupt politicians have ganged up against the president who’s not corrupt at all and this is complete farce. So Dilma Rousseff says this is a coup against her, she is absolutely right and many Brazilians share this opinion.

Press TV: How did Brazil get to this point where you have this branch of the government, the legislative branch of government, ganging up, as you’ve called it, against the president which was elected by the people?

Saxena: The problem is that Brazil has a very confusing constitution. The president of the country is directly elected with the Constitution of Fonseca, an elected president to make coalition with political parties to have some kind of arrangement in the congress so that bills can be passed. And Dilma Rousseff was elected by 54 million Brazilians in 2014, but she was forced to do a deal with this party called PMDB is a corrupt party without any ideology. It believes in power and it is now misusing that position being a coalition partner of the government to come back to power through back door. This kind of system doesn’t exist in any mature democracies and it shows the deep flaws in Brazilian political system and it needs to be corrected if the future presidents do not need to face this kind of situation.

Press TV: So basically you’re saying Dilma Rousseff’s only crime was surrounding herself with corrupt politicians and parties.

Saxena: No, I think a lot of things are happening in Brazil. The one reason of course is in recent years and recent months the Brazilian economy has gone down and inflation has risen, unemployment has risen, economy is nothing well. So, there is anger against the government, but that doesn’t mean that they impeach the president while she was elected just 18 months ago. And if you want to remove a president for making wrong decisions for that year election. But what’s happening here she’s being impeached for crimes she has not committed.

According to Brazilian constitution, a president can be impeached only if he or she has committed a crime of responsibility and this fiscal mismanagement or fiscal indiscipline is being projected as a kind of crime and she’s being impeached. I think the problem here is economy has gone down, there have been a lot of corruption scandals and the people who are involved in corruption scandals, they’ve all come together to sacrifice the president and get rid of the whole scandal.

So this is a very simple game happening here with a lot of support from external forces. That’s very interesting that yesterday evening the vote for impeachment was passed in the congress and one of the most important politicians from opposition flew to Washington to talk to American leaders, talk to State Department people, talk to people in Hillary Clinton’s campaign and American think tanks to what to do next. So you can imagine what’s happening in this country is very very clear.

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