BRAZIL: TEMER ESCAPES IMPEACHMENT BY BUYING LEGISLATORS FOR 4.5 BILLION DOLLARS: IT’S THE WORKERS WHO WILL PAY THE BILL

For a United Front of Struggle! Organize a General Strike and Popular Uprising Now! No to the proposal of parlamentarism! For a Workers’ and Popular Government!

Statement of the Corrente Comunista Revolucionária (Section of the RCIT in Brazil), 22 August 2017, http://elmundosocialista.blogspot.com/

At the beginning of August President Michel Temer was able to obtain enough votes in the Chamber of Deputies to stop the proceeding of the complaints against him to the Federal Supreme Court. Such a "victory" was only possible with the government’s releasing more than 4.5 billion dollars to parliamentarians, creating a huge chest fund to buy votes to save the presidents. The possibility that the denunciation against Temer would be referred to the Federal Supreme Court was ruled out when votes opposed, to the move, in addition to thos of absent legislators, prevented the opposition from obtaining the required 342 votes (two-thirds of the House). Had the complaint been accepted, the Federal Supreme Court would have had to examined the case, which could have led to Temer’s removal from office. until the final decision. In a recording of a conversation between Temer and JBS owner Joesley Batista, the president seems to endorse the pay-off to ex-deputy Eduardo Cunha, who is in custody, in exchange for his silence. The video shows the then Deputy Rodrigo Rocha Loures, one of Temer’s trusted cronies, carrying a suitcase with 500 thousand reais. The money is alleged to be a donation by the owner of the refrigeration company JBS to Temer, part of a bribe offered to the latter to favor doing business with this company.

The following week the Temer government announced that it needed to revise the fiscal budget forecast. The new target foresees a shortfall of R$ 159 billion (reais) in public accounts for 2017 and 2018. This deficit is a bigger than what was previously expected, from R$ 139 billion in 2017 and R$ 129 billion in 2018. Among the measures announced to reduce The budget deficit is the increase in taxes on fuel prices that will generate an additional R$10 billion of income for the government, exactly the sum alleged to have been spent to purchase the votes the deputies of the deputies who kept the president’s case away from the scrutiny of the Federal Supreme Court. Or, in other words,  every time citizens fuel up their vehicles at the gas station, they will be paying to retain in power a president came to office in the wake of a parliamentary coup.

The Temer government has already approved, without the consent of the workers, the complete outsourcing of labor contracts; the 20-year freeze on public investments in essential areas such as health and education and housing; the elimination or reduction of historical labor rights, such as vacations, working hours, overtime, etc. But there remains what is considered the final cherry on the cake, the pension reform, which if approved, in practice will make it impossible for most workers to retire before they die.

The sum of the proposals of the pension reform project is so damaging to workers that part of the rank-and-file government deputies fear losing votes for their own re-election if they vote in favor, exactly one year before the next general elections of 2018, and therefore are threatening not to vote for the reform.

In practice, the Temer government, while having managed to get rid of the threat of impeachment by buying off the parliament, is now in the hands of the same parliament itself. Today, Brazil is witnessing a weak presidency combined with conservative, parliament of vagabonds.

The current political crisis, in which the bourgeoisie cannot agree on who among the most reactionary sector should actually run the country should be the opportunity for the left sectors of the political spectrum, the parties and social movements, to conduct a head on confrontation with the bourgeoisie. But the leftists (PT, PCdoB, PSOL, PCB, PSTU, MTST, MST, etc.) are doing just the opposite, throwing all their hopes into the illusion of bourgeois democracy by betting on their hopes for the outcome of the general elections in October 2018. There are no guarantees what will happen in the elections next year. The political, economic and social crisis is intensifying every day. The sectors that engineered the coup against the government of Dilma and those who collaborated with it, such as the public prosecutor's office, the press in general, the Federal Supreme Court, the National Congress, the big farmers, the conservative parliamentarians from evangelical  and Catholic groups, did not carry out a coup in order to place power back in the hands of Lula da Silva or any other leftist name associated with the struggles for democratic and social rights. The bourgeoisie is openly talking about the possibility of installing the parliamentary system in place of the presidential one, accompanied by the setting up a district vote. If such a proposal materializes, the working and oppressed people of Brazil will be in the hands of the most conservative, reactionary, anti-worker and most corrupt parliament in history. As Marx said: History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy and the second as farce.

The Revolutionary Communist Current reaffirms the need to:

1) Use to our advantage the crisis of this corrupt government! We can and must strengthen the power of the working class and the popular masses! No to the parliamentary!

2) Block the conspiracy of the ruling class with its obscure parliamentary maneuvers. We must overthrow Temer's corrupt government! For the organization of a general strike and a popular uprising!

3) Call upon the CUT, the MST, the MTST, the Popular Brazil Front, the Front of the People Fearless, the PT and all popular mass organizations to constitute a united front of struggle. We call upon these organizations to organize a general strike! We must force the conservative and hesitant bureaucrats in charge of these organizations to organize resistance. But at the same time we should not put our trust in them! These bureaucratic leaders have proven in the past that they are willing to subordinate the struggle for our interests in exchange for participation in the institutions of bourgeois power. We must impose demands upon these leaders, but we must observe and control them carefully.

4) Build committees of popular action. These committees are to be elected in popular assemblies in which all workers participate in workplaces and all persons in popular neighborhoods. They should discuss the most important issues of the fight and elect their delegates. These delegates should meet at a national congress that should discuss how to advance our struggle. These committees of action must also control the leadership of mass organizations and lead the fight against the Temer government if the bureaucrats hesitate and betray us. In addition, such action committees should also create popular self-defense units in order to defend the people against the inevitable attacks by the police and the army.

5) Due to the fact that many people currently follow the leadership of CUT, MST, MTST, FBP, FPSM and PT, we call upon these grassroots organizations to take power into their own hands in the wake of a general strike and a popular uprising. For a government that encompasses organizations and movements such as CUT / INTERSINDICAL / CTB / MST / MTST / FBP / FPSM / CMP / PCO / PT * and all popular mass movements! This could be a first step towards the creation of a people's and workers’ government.

6) In order to advance this strategy and put it into practice, we must create an authentic revolutionary party. We call on all activists to share such a perspective of the struggle to join the CCR in our efforts to build such a party as part of a new revolutionary workers' international!

7) Onward to a revolutionary constituent assembly!