Brazil’s new broom has wasted little time limiting the country’s social policies.
Michel Temer (pictured) was appointed interim president after the vote to impeach Dilma Rousseff was passed. After only one week in power, his centre-right government is moving to erase the policies of the Workers’ Party implemented over the last 13 years in office.
Steps have already been taken to redefine slavery and the limits of indigenous land and to cut back on housing projects for the poor. Environmental impact assessments for major infrastructure work could be weakened or scrapped altogether.
Ministers in the new regime are talking about cuts in health care spending and in the successful family poverty relief system.
Already 4,000 jobs have been axed.
Supporters of the government believe the austerity measures will trim government spending, reduce the country’s deficit and make it again attractive to foreign investors.
Critics claim that the new administration, with no women or minority group members, represents just the old elite and will fail to unite such an ethnically diverse nation. Some continue to claim that the change is effectively a coup.
But all is not golden. Temer is barred from running in a presidential election because of previous electoral violations. He seemed reluctant, but accepted André Moura as the coalition leader in the lower house.
Moura is accused of attempted murder, criminal conspiracy and embezzlement. He had been recommended by a right-wing lobby group controlled by Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the house who had been suspended from the post for obstructing justice and faces charges of corruption and conspiracy but was nevertheless able to orchestrate Rousseff’s impeachment vote.
Brazil is enduring one of its deepest recessions in decades. Its financial rating has slipped down to junk status over the last year. Its taxes are already among the highest in the world while state employees receive some of the most generous payouts in the world.
