Brazil’s Rousseff Assails “Treacherous” Vice President

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” says an old adage. In the case of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, however, former allies have turned into adversaries that are a little to close to her as she faces an impeachment process that could see her deposed from the country’s top political office.

“We are living in strange and worrying times, times of a coup and pretending and treachery…(On Monday) they used the pretense of a leak to give the order for the conspiracy,” declared Rousseff in reference to legislative leader Eduardo Cunha but also Vice President Michel Temer. She accused both men of organizing a coup to “destabilize a legitimately elected president.”

Rousseff did not directly name Temer, but her comments came following a recording purportedly leaked accidently where the person who would succeed her should she get ousted. On the tape he gives what would be his welcoming speech to Brazilians if he were to become president. Though he claimed that the message was only to be heard by advisors and doesn’t wish to “generate false expectations,” Rousseff was certainly not to pleased with the development.

“Like many Brazilians, it came to my knowledge and I confess I was shocked with the shamelessness of the farce of the ‘leak’…trying to disguise the announcement of a premature inauguration, underestimating the intelligence of Brazilians,” an irate Rousseff mentioned.

Both Temer and Cunha belong to the PMDB political party that recently dropped out of the ruling coalition led by Rousseff. They have also been implicated in the corruption scandals that have shaken Brazil’s political elite and could sink the Rousseff regime. (In fact, a Supreme Court judge on April 5th ordered impeachment proceedings to start against Temer).

Ex-Minister Marina Silva Leads Poll for Brazilian President

It may be presumptuous to discuss the 2018 Brazilian presidential race amidst the current political crisis shaking up the South American state. But the growing distrust by Brazilians against their leaders seems to be reflected in the results of a recent poll.

According to a Datafolha survey conducted from March 17 to 18, a plurality of respondents opted for Marina Silva, a former senator and presidential candidate. Silva, who ran as an outsider for the Socialist Party (PSB) in 2014, received 21% backing in the poll if she were to run as an independent. Accounting for the margin of error, she would be in a statistical dead heat with 2014 presidential election runner up Aécio Neves and embattled ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Yet her support climbs to 24% if she were to run as representative of the conservative opposition PDSB, while backing of Lula has plummeted in light of his suspected role in the “Lava Jato” corruption scandal.  

Silva was allied to the ruling Workers Party and served as an environmental minister under Lula from 2003 to 2008. The long-time environmental activist resigned, however, amid disgust over his lack of strong conservation policies. She unsuccessfully ran for president twice including four years ago when she was succeeded Eduardo Campos after he died in a plane crash. She became among the favorites in the polls to make it to the runoff and was backed mainly by social conservatives, middle class Brazilians upset at the government led by Dilma Rousseff, and young voters people turned off by the traditional political establishment. Battling against the existing political machinery along with doubts among some in the PSB seemed to have worked against her, however, and she was trounced in the first round by Neves and eventual victor Rousseff.

Poll: Brazil Opposition Rival Ahead of Rousseff

With less than two weeks to go to the Brazilian president runoff, legislator Aécio Neves appears to be increasingly likely that he will upset incumbent Dilma Rousseff.

Neves leads Rousseff 52.4% to 36.7% according to a Sensus poll of 2000 people that was released today.  The double-digit advantage marks the first time Neves has been ahead in the polls since the October 4th first round of elections that Rousseff won but did not receive a majority that would’ve given her an outright victory. (A pair of surveys released last Thursday showed that he and Rousseff where in a statistical dead heat).

Six weeks ago, polls indicated that Neves would obtain a distant third place finish in the first round yet the former governor has enjoyed a recent surge in the polls.  His representation as a candidate of one of Brazil’s most powerful opposition parties (PDSB) along with his campaign promises to combat corruption and improve the economy appear to resonate heavily with potential voters.

The Sensus poll was conducted last week prior to his endorsement from Marina Silva, the former environment minister who finished in third in the first round.  Silva’s support could provide Neves with an even greater boost in the run-up to the runoff on the 26th of the month.

“From now on, we are one body, one project in favor of Brazil and the Brazilians,” declared Neves yesterday following the endorsement from Silva.

“I trust in the sincerity of the proposals of the candidate and his party, and I give to the Brazilian society the task to see that they are fulfilled,” said Silva whose economic campaign proposals were similar to Neves though both disagreed on gay marriage and marijuana legalization.

Daily Headlines: October 8, 2014

* Brazil: Aécio Neves' bid to win in the upcoming presidential runoff against current leader Dilma Rousseff received a boost from several allies of defeated candidate Marina Silva.

* El Salvador: A Spanish court ruled that Spain has the jurisdiction to investigate the 1989 Jesuit Massacre of eight people in El Salvador.

* Latin America: A new World Bank report concluded that economic growth for Latin America and the Caribbean this year will be less than initially estimated.  

* Mexico: Ten Mexican states were ranked as the worst places to live in among the thirty-four member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube

Online Sources – JURIST; LAHT; World Bank; The Latin Americanist; BBC News

Daily Headlines: October 6, 2014

* Mexico: Investigators in southern Mexico are examining a mass grave that could contain the remains of some of the forty-three student protesters missing since police reportedly attacked them last month.

* Brazil: Defeated presidential candidate Marina Silva said that she will not publicly back Dilma Rousseff or Aécio Neves in an upcoming runoff to decide Brazil’s next president.

* U.S.: Will President Barack Obama’s pledge last week to push for immigration reform attract potential Latino voters to next month’s midterm elections?

* Cuba: “I’m happy I made it alive, but it was something no one should have to go through,” said one of the fifteen Cuban migrants who survived for three weeks without food or water while adrift in the Caribbean.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube

Online Sources – NBC News; Xinhua; The Latin Americanist; The Guardian; CNN

Dilma, Marina or Aécio? (UPDATE: Neither...For Now)

About 142 million registered voters in Brazil head to the voting booths on Sunday in order to decide who could be the South American country’s next president.

Recent polls have shown that incumbent leader Dilma Rousseff is the odds-on favorite to win today’s election though she might not obtain the majority of voted to prevent a runoff on October 26th against the runner-up of today’s election. 

“We took Brazil off the U.N.’s hunger map and helped thirteen million Brazilians attend university,” tweeted Rousseff regarding public social programs under her rule. She also referred to her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, for their efforts to push through a “peaceful social revolution” during the past twelve years.

Of the ten other presidential candidates on the ballot, former environment minister Marina Silva appeared to be Rousseff’s strongest rival.  Silva, who took over for Eduardo Campos when he died in a plane crash nearly two months ago, has positioned herself as an alternative to Brazil’s traditional politics by appealing to disenchanted youth while also promoting pro-business and socially conservative policies. 

“She’s not a messiah… she’s a human with flaws like everyone else. But she’s a person of integrity and ethics and we need that desperately,” said Camargo Cesar, the author of a biography on Silva.

A series of negative ads from the Rousseff campaign and accusations of flip-flopping have apparently affected support for Silva.  According to two polls released on Saturday, Silva is in a statistical tie for second place with senator Aécio Neves.  Neves enjoyed a recent surge in the polls as he has hammered away at several corruption scandals including alleged bribery by execs at state-run oil giant Petrobras.

“He is the most capable and knowledgeable of the three candidates – the safest pair of hands.  Dilma is just an agitator and Marina is too unreliable,” noted one Rio de Janeiro resident.

(UPDATE BELOW THE PAGE BREAK)

Daily Headlines: September 19, 2014

* Brazil: A new poll published this morning found that President Dilma Rousseff and main opposition rival Marina Silva are statistical tied in a likely runoff to decide Brazil’s next president in October.

* Argentina: An attorney for Citibank called for the suspension of a U.S. court decision that pushed Argentina into default and claimed that the Argentine government has placed a metaphorical “gun to our head.”

* Ecuador: Environmentalists, indigenous activists and others joined Ecuador’s largest labor union in anti-government protests in Quito yesterday.

* Latin America: Argentina (2nd) and Colombia (3rd) are the top South American countries in the latest FIFA soccer rankings while Costa Rica (15th) was the highest-placed entry from CONCACAF.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube
 
Online Sources – Blooomberg; LAHT; Businessweek; The Latin Americanist; Goal.com

Daily Headlines: September 4, 2014

* Argentina: Argentina enacted a measure of revenge for losing the World Cup title match in July and thumped Germany 4-2 in an international friendly held in Dusseldorf.

* Brazil: A pair of polls released yesterday showed that President Dilma Rousseff gained support but is still expected to lose in a likely runoff to challenger Marina Silva.

* U.S.: A new medical study concluded that the sexual risk behaviors among young Latinos vary due to factors like language, country of birth and economic status.

* Venezuela: Producers of U.S. TV drama “Legends” apologized for a scene depicting the Venezuelan government buying nerve gas for using against opposition protesters.

Video Source – TyC Sports via YouTube

Online Sources – Deutsche Welle; The Latin Americanist; Reuters; The Guardian; Medical Xpress

Daily Headlines: August 28, 2014

* Nicaragua: Residents along the planned route of Nicaragua’s interoceanic canal are worried that a survey of the area could lead to them losing their homes and receiving unfair compensation.

* Brazil: Several polls released this week indicated that last-minute presidential candidate Marina Silva would upset incumbent Dilma Rousseff in the likely event of a runoff election.

* Argentina: Thousands of workers including state employees, truckers and waiters are expected to participate today in the second general strike to hit Argentina in less than five months.

* Colombia: Is the hospitalization of approximately 200 girls living in a northern Colombian town caused by vaccinations or is it merely a case of mass hysteria?

Video Source – YouTube user Newsy World

Online Sources – The Guardian; Reuters; The Latin Americanist; Bloomberg

Senior Brazilian Party Official Quits Silva Campaign

On her first full day as the official candidate of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), Marina Silva faced a challenge against her campaign.  The opposition however, did not come from her electoral rivals but instead from within the PSB.

“I want to put a distance between myself and Marina Silva,” declared PSB Secretary-General Carlos Siqueira who quit from the Silva campaign on Thursday.

“I will not participate anymore in her campaign.  She does not represent the PSB,” declared Siqueira who was the campaign manager for Eduardo Campos, the candidate Silva replaced after he died in a plane crash last week.

“Silva is far from representing the legacy of Eduardo Campos,” added Siqueira who claimed that she tried to remove him from his post after she was chosen as the PSB’s candidate on Wednesday night.

Siqueira’s replacement, legislator Walter Feldman, tried to deflect away from his predecessor’s harsh criticism and told the press that he will try to keep him on the Silva campaign.  Nevertheless, Siqueira’s comments reflect a distrust among some politicos in the alliance between Campos’ PSB and Silva’s Sustainability Network party.

Silva, the environmentalist and ex-minister who was Campos’ vice presidential pick prior to his untimely death, held a press conference yesterday where she blasted the economic policies of incumbent leader Dilma Rousseff.

Daily Headlines: August 18, 2014

* U.S.: A recent study concluded that Latino characters were represented in a scant 4.9% of movies released between 2007 and 2013 and “Latinos are the most likely to be sexualized on screen, with both male and female actors more apt to be asked to be partially or fully naked.”

* Brazil: The first poll since the death last Wednesday of presidential candidate Eduardo Campos showed incumbent Dilma Rousseff in a statistical tie in a hypothetical runoff against Campos' probable replacement, environmentalist Marina Silva.

* Ecuador: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced today that he plans to “soon” leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has resided in for the past two years.

* Chile: Ricardo Izurieta, the military general who succeeded the dictatorial rule of the late Augusto Pinochet, died Sunday at age 71.

Video Source – YouTube user MOVIECLIPS  (Scene from the 2011 ALMA Award-winning film "A Better Life").

Online Sources – The A.V. Club; NBC News; The Latin Americanist; The Huffington Post; Miami Herald

Brazil: Presidential Hopeful Dies in Plane Crash

Eduardo Campos, a former Brazilian governor and candidate looking to unseat President Dilma Rousseff in October’s election, died today in a plane crash.

The plane Campos had been traveling in reportedly crashed in bad weather as it prepared to land in Sao Paulo state.  According to local authorities, all seven people aboard the Cessna 560XL aircraft passed away including Campos and “several campaign officials”.

“I was getting ready to open the school when I heard a loud noise of a jet approaching,” said eyewitness Vinicius Lopes.  “Then the plane hit the building.  It looked like a war scene.”

Donizete Maguila, Jr., another eyewitness who was returning back from work in the port city of Santos where the accident occurred, recalled when he found the corpse of Campos.

“I saw his clear eyes and tried to clean his face.  At the time I couldn’t believe…I saw the candidate,” he said.

The Recife-born Campos served as a federal legislator on three occasions and was the Science and Technology Minister under then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.  With the support of Lula, Campos won election as Governor of Pernambuco and held that post for two terms.  In his seven years as governor, Campos oversaw a drop in the rates of violence, improvements in education standards and pushing for major infrastructure projects.  Yet it was Pernambuco’s strong economic growth that has been his main political strong point against Rousseff who has been criticized for Brazil’s shaky economy.

Recent polls placed the centrist hopeful from the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) in a distant third place behind the leftist Rousseff and moderate conservative candidate Aecio Neves.  Yet Campos could’ve played a key role in a potential Rousseff-Neves runoff by providing an official endorsement and support to one of the two frontrunners. (Neves said he was “immensely saddened” by news of the crash while Rousseff announced that she would suspend campaigning for the next three days).

Daily Headlines: April 17, 2014

* Cuba: As part of Cuba’s new labor law, the government officially declared Good Friday as a national holiday for the first time since prior to the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
 
* Brazil: Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff continues to handily lead in the latest presidential polls though she could face a serious challenge from ex-governor Eduardo Campos who this week teamed up with respected environmental activist Marina Silva.
  
* Colombia: The offices of the Sintraemcali union were firebombed days after a Colombian court ordered the state to apologize for alleging that union members were allied to the FARC guerillas.
 
* Argentina: Police in Argentina rescued a fifteen-year-old girl who was severely malnourished and abused by her adoptive parents who left her imprisoned for nine years in a garage.
 
Video Source– AFP via YouTube (Cuban officials recognized Good Friday as a holiday in 2012 following Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the island but did not celebrate Good Friday as its own holiday last year).

Online Sources – CBS Local; The Guardian; Bloomberg; Fox News Latino; RTE

Daily Headlines: February 22, 2013

* Brazil: Former environment minister and presidential candidate Marina Silva launched a new political group “seeking to break the monopoly of traditional political parties.”

* Cuba: Will the U.S. State Department soon remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism?
 
* Haiti: The U.N. rejected compensating victims of a cholera outbreak that killed thousands in Haiti.

* Mexico: U.S.-based Cargill reached a settlement regarding a free trade dispute with Mexico.

Video Source – YouTube via user TEDxTalks

Online Sources- Mercopress, Miami Herald, BBC News, NBC News