May 8, 2016 Brazil's Impeachment of President Dilma and America's Hillary Dilemma
Vernon Roken
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/brazils_impeachment_of_president_dilma_and_americas_hillary_dilemma.html Impeachment is an English word, yet it now rings across the vastness of Brazil. It is chanted in the massive street demonstrations in the country's cities and intoned in the Congresso Nacional (Brazil's parliament), where the lower house voted to impeach Dilma Rousseff, the nation's first female president.
Impeachment entered the Portuguese-speaking country's political lexicon as a result of the heavy northern influence in matters of democracy.
Brazil's state-based federal presidential system was copied from America's.
The constitution of what is now called the Old Republic (1889-1930) was patterned on the United States constitution.
BRAZIL'S POLITICAL EVOLUTION, Government and Politics
http://countrystudies.us/brazil/82.htm Since then, Brazil has had a rough ride to democracy, most notably the heavy-handed military regime that lasted from 1964 to 1984.
The first president elected by popular vote following army rule, Fernando Collor de Mello, was impeached in 1992. For Brazil, which has long suffered from high levels of inequality and corruption, impeachment was a vast improvement from the golpes de estado (coups) that were an integral part of Latin America's politics until the 1980s, when democratization began to take hold across the continent.
So it was a great step forward for Brazilian democracy when the country became one of the founding members along with the United States of The Open Government Partnership.
The Partnership is an initiative of the United Nations that aims "to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.”
WHAT IS THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP?
http://www.opengovpartnership.org/about At the first annual summit of The Open Government Partnership, which took place in Brasilia in 2012, then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton lavishly praised her co-chairperson, President Dilma Rousseff:
Remarks at the Open Government Partnership Opening Session
http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/04/188008.htm There is no better partner to have started this effort and to be leading it than Brazil, and in particular, President Rousseff.
Her commitment to openness, transparency, her fight against corruption is setting a global standard.
Hillary, who attended Rousseff's first inauguration in 2011, admires the Brazilian economist, who in her twenties was imprisoned and tortured by the military regime for her activities in Marxist urban guerrilla groups.
The tough-minded Dilma served as chief of staff for her wildly popular predecessor, Lula da Silva, before seeking her first elected office with his backing.
Now a year and a half into her second term as president, Dilma's case is on its way to the Brazilian Senate where, as in the US model, she will be tried for undermining the country's financial well-being by fudging the national budget.
Ironically, Hillary is seeking the presidency while under investigation for risking national security by using a personal server to convey classified information.
Neither woman denies the facts; both claim that while their actions were in bad judgement, they were not illegal..
Both Rousseff and Clinton point to the political motivations behind the proposed criminalization of their acts.
Meanwhile, deeper accusations of corruption lurk over both women.
In Rousseff's case, her government is deeply mired in a scheme to siphon of billions from Petrobras, Brazil's oil conglomerate.
While there is no evidence of wrongdoing on her part, she was chairwoman the company's board of directors when the scandal occurred. of
Petrobras' chairman Rousseff to step down
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/petrobras-chairman-to-step-down-reports-2010-03-19 Clinton is being investigated for "the possible 'intersection' of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business which may have violated public corruption laws.”
FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/fbis-clinton-probe-expands-to-public-corruption-track.html Dilma Rouseff and Hillary Clinton are the same age (68) and share a similar leftist ideology.
A comparison of their alleged misconduct and their pretexts can tell us a lot about how our potential first female president's legal baggage and personal corruption could damage the United States.
Alleged misconduct
Rousseff is accused of "pedaladas fiscais," creative accounting techniques, which hid some 26 billion dollars of debt incurred by her government's social programs.