With its sleek modernist design and daring lines, the National Congress building in Brasília appeared to be the perfect symbol of the creativity and idealism of a young nation when it opened in the early 1960s.
Little more than 50 years on, however, it is the setting for a chaotic and demeaning political battle that has even long-term parliament watchers shaking their heads in disbelief.
Brazil desperately needs strong leadership to overcome the country’s worst economic crisis in decades, but the most powerful figures in the country’s government and legislature – president Dilma Rousseff and the speaker of the lower house Eduardo Cunha – are inching ever closer to an impeachment showdown.
It is a spectacularly unedifying spectacle that pits the most unpopular president in history against a politician who has been repeatedly tainted by corruption scandals. Every new development seems only to make them – and the system they represent – look more flawed.
Last week, Rousseff’s government was found guilty of fudging public accounts to cover up shortfalls, raising the possibility that she could face an ouster vote in a hostile congress. Days later, Cunha was revealed to have several undeclared Swiss bank accounts.
The two combatants seem locked in a kind of death by 1,000 defamations. In the underground walkways, office corridors and rooftop restaurants of the Oscar Niemeyer building, conspiracies swirl along with speculation about how long they can remain standing.
But this is not just about the two figures in the limelight. Dozens of other congressmen implicated in scandals – including the vice-president, the head of the upper house and the two deputy speakers of the lower house – and parliamentary veterans say the situation is far more chaotic and unpredictable now than during the 1992 impeachment of the then president Fernando Collor de Mello.
“There are crises now of politics, economics and ethics,” said Arnaldo Jordy, deputy leader of the opposition Popular Socialist party, who has been in congress for 29 years. “I’ve never known this multiplicity of overlapping crises.”
Brasília is distracted by impeachment talks and paralysed by a shift in the economic winds. Recession has eaten into the government’s ability to secure votes with pork-barrel projects. The massive Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation into billions of dollars of bribes and kickbacks at the state-run oil company Petrobrashas choked the slush funds that previously oiled the wheels of government. Generous travel perks have been trimmed in a fiscal readjustment.
Parliamentarians are unhappy. But they are unlikely to get any public sympathy.
The legislature fails to reflect Brazil’s population, with just 13% of elected positions held by women and only 3% held by black politicians (although black and mixed-race people constitute more than half of the country’s 200 million people).
Instead, the chambers are filled with white men, an alarming number of whom are alleged criminals. As of last month, 141 deputies (almost 30% of the lower house) and 31 senators (almost 40% of the upper house) were being investigated for crimes, including corruption, money laundering, electoral fraud and incitement to rape, according to the watchdog group Congresso em Foco.
Previous congresses have included politicians accused of drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder.
Few are ever convicted because politicians enjoyed a high degree of impunity. Their cases must be dealt with by the supreme court, which usually files them away until they expire.
According to Sylvio Costa, the editor of Congresso em Foco, almost 200 parliamentarians are currently facing criminal charges. “The worst rises to the top because of the way we do politics, exchanging money for power.”
Cunha – the speaker of the house – is allegedly the master of this dark art. In the Brazilian media, he is presented as a figure so sinister he is almost comical, resembling the Simpsons’ Mr Burns but acting like Frank Underwood in House of Cards. His fellow deputies speak of him in awed – almost fearful – tones.
“In all my time in politics, he’s the most machiavellian figure,” says Ivan Valente, who has served seven terms as the president of leftwing opposition party PSOL. “Cunha is a politician who is opportunistic, intelligent, ambitious and corrupt. People can’t claim to be against corruption and then support Cunha. But that’s what the rightwing opposition do. They close their eyes.”
It has become increasingly difficult to do that. An informer in the Lava Jato investigation claims Cunha took $5m in kickbacks. Opponents this week lodged a motion in the lower house ethics committee demanding that he be removed from office.
This week, the supreme court limited Cunha’s powers, and government supporters claim their nemesis is now a fatally weakened figure.
“The speaker of the house has no moral credibility to launch impeachment proceedings. What we are seeing now in congress is a shift towards his removal,” said Silvio Costa, a deputy leader of the house from the government camp. But he acknowledged that if the necessary majority of the 25 ethics committee members supported the motion – which currently looks unlikely – it would take at least 90 days to remove him from office.
Cunha is far from finished. His signature is all that is needed to take any one of the 12 impeachment motions to the floor of the house. He also knows many secrets. Congressmen whisper that if he falls, he will bring others down with him.
He also maintains considerable support. Cunha – an evangelical Christian – has built a power base among the main conservative blocks – the ruralistas (agribusiness lobby), the fundamentalistas (religious groups) and the bancada da bala (“bullet lobby” of congressmen close to the military and police) by pushing bills on family values and weakening those on disarmament of the security forces and indigenous land demarcation. He is also widely rumoured to have used his connections to bankroll dozens of deputies.
In normal circumstances, the opening of an impeachment vote would require a two-thirds majority in the 513-member lower house. For now, Rousseff appears secure but the maths could change. Cunha has vowed to launch a challenge at the supreme court on Friday that – if successful – could pave the way for an impeachment vote that would require only a simple majority to proceed.
Complicating matters further are rifts within the biggest party in congress, the Brazilian Democratic Movement party (PMDB), a party which concentrates more on power than any defined ideology and which has dominated Brazilian politics for the past 30 years. The presidential prospects of its two most prominent leaders – Vice-President Michel Temer and Cunha – vary according to what happens next. If Dilma, as the president is popularly known, is ousted in the last two years of her mandate, Temer will see out the remainder of the term.
As a result, there are very different levels of urgency among supporters of these two PMDB leaders.
Wellington Moreira Franco, a PMDB strategist who is close to Temer, insists impeachment should not be rushed. Currently, he said there was not enough support among institutions and industry to proceed with such a grave step.
But he predicted pressure will build as the gravity of Brazil’s economic woes becomes more evident. “We’re closer to impeachment than two or three months ago. The momentum is not sufficient yet, but I think it will come,” he said in his top-floor office.
Others, particularly those in the opposition camp, are reluctant to wait. They say Dilma is using delaying tactics to wear down support for change.
“Time is running against us. The longer we leave it, the more likely it is that public attention will be diverted elsewhere,” said Cristiane Brazil, a lower house deputy from the PTB who dined at Cunha’s home this week. With an election looming next year, she said the last chance was a rally on 15 November. “We will mobilise the public so deputies can’t resist the call for impeachment.”
Others are also impatient for change. “I hope a year from now that both Dilma and Cunha will be out of their posts. Then Brazil would have a chance to recover and to have a government with the political legitimacy it needs to deal with this crisis,” said Jordy, who said he would vote tomorrow to remove them both if he had the chance.
It is doubtful that this would solve Brazil’s governance problems, which go far deeper than a couple of conflicting personalities.
The most widely expressed hope in congress was that another branch of government – the judiciary – will prove the most positive force for change.
Amid corruption scandals and investigations, a new generation of idealistic judges, prosecutors and federal police is becoming far more popular than the nation’s elected representatives.
Some predict that the outcome of the investigations – more than any impeachment debate – will shape the future of the country.
“I think we’re going to see the greatest jailing of congressmen in world history,” said Silvio Costa. “And this will be a positive thing for Brazil.”
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