As Brazil’s President Dilma Rouseff has been preparing for two significant events this year, the first a visit by Pope Francis of Latin American origins, and the second a visit by the President herself to the White House in October, she has suddenly, and obviously unexpectedly, found herself under political siege at home.
Assuming a significant political inheritance from President Lula in both the domestic and international spheres, Ms Rouseff has had to struggle in the last few weeks to contain extensive political protests directed at what the protestors seem to feel is insufficient attention to their social statuses in what has come to be described as one of the leading economies in the developing world, and a central member of the BRICS concerned to play a part in developments in the rest of the world.
It almost looks as if the President has been told, ‘physician heal thyself’ as Brazil has sought to proffer advice to others in a number of spheres over the globe, seeking in particular, to persuade other states to recognize Brazil’s advancement and international status by rewarding the country with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Indeed to the mere onlooker, Brazil has been one of the rising stars over at least three decades, as first, a liberal government under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso who served two terms (January 1995-January 2003), succeeded in turning the country’s economy from a persistent path of stagnation; then secondly, under Lula (2003-2011) who maintained the country’s growth rate to a level of 7.5% in 2010 (Brazil having been able to evolve through the global economic crisis of 2008-2009), while carrying through substantial social measures that lifted the depressed standard of living and persistent social deprivation of the large majority of the population.
President Rousseff, of course, was unlucky in finding as part of her own inheritance when she assumed office in January 2011, a rapid descent in the growth rate of the country to 0.9% in 2012, as economic recession again gripped the American economy, and China, the new economic star was beginning to take measures to ensure that that event did not slow her own progress unduly.
It now seems clear that the population had expected more progress, consistently, from Rousseff’s administration. And their disappointment has been inflicted on her as the current leader of the country, even as the protesting masses have focused on projects to which Lula had committed the country, including the forthcoming Olympics and World Cup football.
So she has become the scapegoat, and seems to have been entirely surprised by the turn of events as she has sought to appease the masses with promises, including more extensive health care support based on the importation of medical personnel from Cuba, Spain and Portugal, which has in turn led to protests from Brazilian doctors and other medical personnel. But in backpedalling in the face of such protest, she has not helped herself, seeming to be uncertain as to which way to turn.
These events have occurred at a time when the President has been trying to fine-tune the most appropriate conditions for a visit to the United States where she undoubtedly hoped to advance her country’s case for United Nations Security Council membership. But the Snowden case which has led the US itself to exert pressure on Latin American states to refuse either temporary or permanent asylum to the exposer of American security operations, has also made the President look uncertain. Noticeably she did not seem to feel confident enough to directly represent Brazil at a meeting of Latin American nations to protest the forcing down of a plane carrying the Bolivian President, and thought also to be also ferrying Snowden out of Russia.
Brazil’s reputation over the last decade and particularly during Lula’s administrations, has been that of seeking an increasing diplomatic coalescence among Latin American states, trying to enhance the continent’s international reputation by strengthening its conditions of economic growth. Brazilian governments have been insisting that what they refer to as infrastructural integration, meaning an increasing physical integration, and therefore collective use of the countries’ physical landscapes and resources, is the best way to enhance the continent’s strength in the world economy, and in international diplomacy about that global economy’s direction.
The Union of South American States, initiated by Brazil under Lula, has obviously been the foremost initiative in that regard, being a regional initiative but one carried on simultaneously with Lula’s attempt to forge a diplomatic coalition among the so-called BRICS. The purpose of these has been to be able to organise both political and international trade and economic initiatives, that would put Brazil, and by extension the continent, beyond the sphere of playing from a position of United States domination of both the North and South Atlantic.
American diplomacy itself has been somewhat wary of these initiatives which have been based on an emerging structure of international trade that has placed Brazil as an economic actor vis-à-vis the rising Chinese economy and specific countries of Africa and Asia. No doubt the Americans will be closely looking at President Rousseff’s next move before, and then beyond, her visit to Washington. For Brazil has been something of a thorn in the side of the North Atlantic powers as she has resisted what the country has perceived as their undesirable initiatives and stances, particularly at the level of the WTO and the Doha Round.
How President Rousseff’s diplomacy reacts to these concerns, as she is forced to turn her mind more forcibly to coping with the domestic economic and political scene, while sustaining a consistent economic policy that avoids both increasing inflation and rising debt will be interesting. For the present circumstances will certainly have an effect on the initiatives that Brazil would wish to sustain on the South American continent itself, and in working out its diplomatic initiatives within the BRICS coalition.
