Dilma Rousseff throws flowers to supporters, 2014. Demotix/Fabio Teixeira. All rights reserved.Hundreds of thousands of chiefly white middle class protesters took to the streets in Brazil on 15 March in an organised upsurge of hatred against the federal administration led by President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (‘Partido dos Trabalhadores’, PT). These protests are far more cohesive and better organised than the previous wave of anti-government demonstrations, in 2013; their demands are unambiguously reactionary, and they include primarily the country’s elite.
The 2015 demonstrations erupted in the political vacuum created by the paralysis of Dilma’s administration because of its own ineptitude and Brazil’s worsening economy. Those difficulties were compounded by aggressive media reporting of the Lava Jato corruption scandal, focusing on a network of firms channelling vast sums to individuals and political parties through the state-owned oil company Petrobras. Readers should not underestimate this crisis and its devastating implications for the Brazilian left.
At a deeper level, the economic and political crises in Brazil are due to the achievements and limitations of the administrations led by Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-06 and 2007-10) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-14 and 2015-present). They led a partial economic and social break with neoliberalism that has delivered significant gains in employment and distribution, but also entrenched poor economic performance and left Brazil vulnerable to the global downturn.
