Saturday 7 April 2018

Saturday Photo: Brasília....

Sad news from Brazil about the right wing campaign to stamp out any politician to the right of centre.  Lula (former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva)  this morning still seems to be holding out, but we shall see...

In the meantime, read this by Mark Weisbrot. A sample:

"If Mr. da Silva is barred from the presidential election, the result could have very little legitimacy, as in the Honduran election in November that was widely seen as stolen. A poll last year found that 42.7 percent of Brazilians believed that Mr. da Silva was being persecuted by the news media and the judiciary. A noncredible election could be politically destabilizing.
Perhaps most important, Brazil will have reconstituted itself as a much more limited form of electoral democracy, in which a politicized judiciary can exclude a popular political leader from running for office. That would be a calamity for Brazilians, the region and the world."

The photo was one I took four years ago in Brasília from the gorgeous Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, designed by Oscar Niemeyer.  Note the big Brazilian flag in the background.  Things appeared better then, with Dilma Rouseff poised to win re-election.  How times have changed.  Wonder if the view has. 

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