In Brazil, the real crime is corruption
President Rousseff hands are clean in graft scandal
As
Brazil embarks on the wrenching process of possibly booting President
Dilma Rousseff from office, here’s some advice from a country that knows
something about impeachment: Make sure it’s about serious violations of
law, not about politics.
There
is, we hasten to say, no comparison between the charges or situations
involving former President Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the House
of Representatives almost 20 years ago but survived a trial in the
Senate, and that of Ms. Rousseff.
He
was accused of a dalliance with a White House intern and lying under
oath about personal matters. She is accused of violating regulations
regarding government finances, a budgetary trick designed to conceal a
looming deficit.
On
the face of it, these are two very different matters — except for the
political impetus driving the impeachment process in both instances.
Mr.
Clinton had indeed indulged in conduct that is beneath what’s expected
of a president. But the Republicans who despised him never managed to
convince a skeptical public that they had the country’s best interests
at heart — as opposed to their own selfish political interests — or that
Mr. Clinton’s actions were a big deal.
Similarly,
Ms. Rousseff, by all accounts, did indeed play games with public
finances. She wanted to enhance her prospects for reelection in 2014 and
borrowed $11 billion from state banks to fund popular social programs
designed to help the poor who make up her party’s base.
Whether
this deserves impeachment is a question that has divided Brazil’s legal
experts and constitutional scholars, and one that Brazil’s senators
should ponder seriously as they prepare to vote this week on whether to
hold an impeachment trial.
But
the real issue behind this ruckus is not tricky bookkeeping by the
president, but rather the corruption crisis engulfing Brazil. That is,
indeed, a very big deal — an enormous corruption investigation that has
snared some 50 politicians and a few business leaders. It’s left the
political system in tatters.
Ms.
Rousseff, as it happens, is one of the few ranking political leaders
who is not accused of graft. But among those who are is Eduardo Cunha,
the head of Brazil’s lower house, the man leading the impeachment drive.
He’s being investigated for money laundering and taking bribes. Many of
the accused, like him, are among the lawmakers deciding the president’s
fate.
Then
there’s Vice President Michel Temer, a widely disliked political figure
who would replace Ms. Rousseff, at least during the Senate trial.
Testimony implicates him and close allies in the graft scandal around
Petrobras, the national oil company.
For
Brazil’s army of dirty politicians, impeaching a weak and unpopular
president offers a fortuitous distraction from their own crimes. It
provides a scapegoat to quench the public’s thirst for justice, for a
big name to take the fall for the country’s woes and shift the focus
away from corrupt lawmakers.
Ms. Rousseff may be guilty of mismanaging the economy, but her hands are clean in the graft and corruption scandal.
There are no winners here, as there were none in the Clinton imbroglio.
The
only way Brazil can emerge stronger is to continue to rely on
democratic institutions to prosecute crime and to strip corrupt
lawmakers of power. Ms. Rousseff’s violations, if proven true, are
serious, but impeachment is a huge ax to wield for breaking the rules of
budget management.
Brazilians
should not be distracted. The crime that has brought their country low
is thievery in office. Go after the crooks, and let voters decide the
fate of incompetent politicians.
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