Demila Rouseff calls her impeachment a coup d’état. Many academics and political experts agree that the old guard and corrupt capitalist elite in Brazil have overthrown the president, despite the fact that all the legal procedures for her impeachment have been observed. As one pro-Rouseff Brazilian protester remarked, this is a ‘civilian coup – capitalism doesn’t need guns and soldiers; it is enough to have an anti-democratic judicial system’.
Ive/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.Now go back 35 years to Iran. The 1979 Iranian Revolution is less than two-and-a-half years old. The clergy have, gradually, monopolized the state. The aim is, as the head of the Islamic Republic Party (Ayatollah Beheshti) has stated, to establish a ‘despotism of the pious’. The only remaining obstacle to the total monopolization of power is the office of the recently elected president, Abolhassan Banisadr. He insists upon defending the democratic goals of the revolution despite being offered increased powers to reject them, therefore he writes to Khomeini:
“I joined you because I saw you as a man of belief and action. I accepted the post of presidency in order to serve the people according to my belief and spend all my power in defending the principles. However, it has become obvious that you do not want a man of belief and action, but a lackey. The title of presidency is not a status to violate my principles and belief for them. If I am not able to serve I have no attraction to such titles. If you are looking for a lackey, there are so many lackeys, do not expect such a thing from me. The Shah was not overthrown to be replaced with a worse system.”
