Earlier this week, militant members of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) occupied the triplex used as evidence of former President Lula in the corruption charges leveraged against him. Guilherme Boulos, a national coordinator for the movement and current presidential candidate, quipped on social media: “If it’s Lula’s, the people can stay. If not, then why… Read More »
This week, the Explaining Brazil podcast will tackle fake news. While this phenomenon is by no means a problem exclusive to Brazil, our elections could be affected more than others: Brazil has 122 million Facebook users, making it the social media giant’s third largest market. Skewed facts are probably a well-established part of the agenda… Read More »
On October 26, 2014, Senator Aécio Neves gave his concession speech after losing the presidential race to Dilma Rousseff. His tone, however, was far from somber. Aécio had won over 51 million votes and managed to turn what was anticipated to be a slam dunk election for Rousseff into the fiercest campaign in Brazil’s democratic… Read More »
Recent surveys show that 96 percent of Brazilians don’t feel represented by our current elected officials. And 89 percent of voters think that politicians are not well prepared enough to perform their duties. But while Brazilians are certainly unhappy about our political system, big parties have crafted the electoral legislation in order to preserve their… Read More »
Few institutions in Brazil are as highly regarded as Operation Car Wash. For 95 percent of Brazilians, the investigation should continue and scrutinize the country’s entire political class. In over four years, Brazil’s most comprehensive take on corruption has amounted to 140 convicted defendants. Guess how many of those were politicians in office? You guessed… Read More »
The date was January 31, 1998. Around 2,000 world leaders were congregated in the Swiss ski resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum. The list included German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the United States’ First Lady Hillary Clinton. It was when then-Argentinian president Carlos Menem introduced an ambitious idea:… Read More »
Brazilians are five months away from casting their ballots for president – and there are no candidates that stand out as clear-cut favorites. It’s the first time since we became a democracy that we have been this close to a presidential election with such uncertainty. Of course, that scenario would be far different if former… Read More »
Sergio Moro, the judge overseeing the extensive corruption probe Operation Car Wash, did not tell voters in 2017 that blank votes were the only way to stop political corruption. Lula’s planned trip to Ethiopia, a country that does not extradite to Brazil, was for the African Union Summit in January – not to escape jail.… Read More »
Lima, the Peruvian capital, hosts today and tomorrow (April 13 and 14) the Summit of the Americas. The event, which has no fixed periodicity, is an opportunity for leaders of the region to discuss how to tackle their most urgent challenges. But the 8th edition of the summit will showcase the political turmoil that Latin… Read More »
One of the main problems in Brazil’s law enforcement is a lack of integration between police forces and the several agencies that should be fighting crime. Instead of cooperating with one another, these agencies frequently don’t see eye-to-eye – they omit information and don’t cooperate with one another. The House has now decided to force… Read More »