Recording exposes attempt of general agreement to save everyone, including Lula.
By PSTU-Brazil.
The revelation of the dialogues between the current Minister of Planning, Romero Jucá (PMDB-RR) and the former president of Transpetro, Sérgio Machado, recorded in March and disseminated during the last days by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, deepen even more the crisis of a government that started with the left foot, and already suffers a tremendous worn-out.
The recordings bring to the surface a fact each time more acknowledge by everyone: Temer’s government is nothing but a coalition of corrupts, most of them coming from Dilma’s government, as Jucá himself, whose goal is to ‘remain clean’ while they continue implementing the adjustment and the attacks already prepared during the government of PT.
By the end of Monday’s afternoon, Romero Jucá announced his resignation. But the crisis is far from ending.
“Michel makes a great agreement”
The conversation is in hands of the Attorney General’s Office, and they expose clearly that one of the favors to vote for impeachment in the Chamber was to stop or “stall the bleeding” of Lava Jato [money laundry scandal]. Romero Jucá and Machado are being investigated for this operation and both are targets of the investigations by the STF [Supreme Justice Court].
The recordings are full of threats and guilt confessions. “What am I worried about? Me, and you” says Machado, talking about the investigations. Both of them defend “a quick political move”, and state they need to convince Renan Calheiros [President of the Senate] to overcome his reluctance to Michel “because Michel is [aligned with] Eduardo Cunha”.
Romero Jucá advised Machado to look for Renan Calheiros and José Sarney [former president of Brazil, during the ‘80s] to articulate the end of Lava Jato. Jucá defends a “national pact” with the STF. “To delimitate where it is positioned. That is it”, he says, adding he had talked to Ministers of the STF on that regard. The dialogues even introduce PSDB as part of the game. “Everyone is on the tray to be eaten”, as Jucá says, being Aécio “the first one to fall”.
The conversation also shows, in front of the current situation of the government, impeachment was not the best solution, but a license or resignation. “Michel has to be part of a National Unity government, he can make a wide agreement, protect Lula, protect everyone, and this country can go back to serenity. No one can take this anymore”.
They are all the same
The conversation between Machado and the Senator, current Minister and president of PMDB, Romero Jucá, show the cluster of corruption this government and National Congress are, the old base of Dilma’s government, of which Romero Jucá was the leader, as much as the bourgeois opposition, led by Aécio and the PSDB.
On the contrary of the “coup” thesis, it shows the desperate quest for a “wide agreement” including PMDB, the contractors and even Lula. They are all in the same boat. It shows, although politics are selective, the operation Lava Jato is not completely controlled by the bourgeois opposition. All of them show apprehension regarding whom else can appear along Sérgio Machado’s recordings. It is known Renan Calheiros and Sarney were recorded too. The voice of who else will we hear over the next days?
Will this country go “back to serenity”?
The exposure of the audio shows, in the course of last events, thing did not go as planned. First, impeachment was not the first option, even though “Temer’s solution” was necessary. Then, the separation of Cunha by the STF, being the men holding Temer’s back. And now, it comes the exposure of this scandalous conversation.
An interesting element of the dialogue is Romero Jucá’s worry about a “calm” environment. To hold the crisis is a necessity, not only for the defectors of the Congress, but also for the major bankers and businessmen, who need stability to impose the adjustment and attacks, such as the reform of Pension Funds and the labour code.
Calm, however, is everything this government will not have. In less more than a week, Temer has closed ministries and retracted of it, we worn-out with the disastrous statements of their Ministers, and now he sees his main Minster and articulator falling. The characterization that Temer’s government is even weaker, more fragile, and it expresses an inter-bourgeois division with difficulties to settle is being confirmed. Such is the deepness of the social, economic crisis.
¡Out with Temer, out with all of them! ¡General elections now!
If it is not true there was a “coup”, it is true Temer’s government is not legitimate. This corrupt National Congress, financed by great contractors, has not legitimacy whatsoever to put anyone in the government. Besides, Temer is the continuation of Dilma’s government, it was elected as part of the same list, and already in the Planalto [government’s palace], he aims to implement and deepen the same policies Dilma tried to, but could not.
It is necessary, and urgent, to take down Temer, Romero Jucá, Renan Calheiros and the entire government and corrupt National Congress, puppets of the bankers and great contractors, but not for Dilma to come back, as some sectors linked to the PT currently defend, neither for Lula to run in 2018. We need to take them all down and demand general elections now, under new rules.
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Translation: Sofía Ballack.
