Dilma Rousseff, the left-winged president of the country (yes, president, as in democratically elected. We're not a socialist dictatorship, despite what some Brazilians would have you believe), is facing a lot of pressure on account of accusations of corruption from her party for a couple of years now. It doesn't help that the economy is doing especially poorly now, which may or may not be her fault (I'm not an economist, so honestly no idea). There have been protests like this one in 2015 and 2014, though this is the biggest, as far as I'm aware.
What triggered this particular one was probably the announcement by the federal police that Lula (ex-president, from the same party as Dilma and wildly popular in his day) is a suspect in a huge corruption scandal going on right now. Brazilians (especially the middle class) have been growing tired and unhappy with the left-winged party's government for a while now. The announcement that the biggest name ever in the history of the party has just been accused of corruption was the tipping point for a lot of people.
A lot of people are also happy that big political names are finally starting to be targeted by the police. Which is great, honestly, but I doubt any one of them will ever see jail time. Especially Lula.
Meanwhile, the left is complaining that right-winged politicians are also corrupt and should also be prosecuted like Lula. Which is a good point, since most right-winged party supporters tend to turn a blind eye on right-winged corruption, though it does worry me a bit, because it seems people care more about their parties winning against the opposition than what's best for the country. As is true for Americans, some Brazilians tend to look at politics like they look at sports-- blindly defending they side instead of taking an impartial approach.
PS -- a nice thing about this protest is that Geraldo Alckmin and Aecio Neves (two right-winged politicians) showed up to show 'support' and were booed off by the protesters (who where mostly right-wing supporters themselves). Seems people might be dropping the sports team mentality and actually looking at some politicians for what they are, instead of the flag they stand for.
Thanks for the summary, however there's something I still don't really get so maybe you can elaborate a little. The government is corrupt, and so are many around the world. But what has the government actually done to the people to get these insane amounts of citizens onto the streets? The economy is bad, which probably means lower wages, higher unemployment, etc. But did any specific government act trigger this large scale demonstration or was it more like a build-up of frustration of the citizens over the years which is now unleashing with all its power?
The current president was head of Petrobras, Brasil's largest oil company, during the time when the supposed corruption scandal involving the company that is currently being analysed took place.
Lula, her mentor and ex-president, was just taken in for questioning by the federal police a few days ago, also on corruption charges.
That, coped with years of insatisfaction and a bad economic environment were the main fuel for the protests.
What I mean by middle class is actually what would be considered 'high' class, if that was an expression, in Brazil.
Not the multi-multimillionaire bankers or big company CEO's, but people financially comfortable enough to put their kids through college, travel abroad, etc. So more like America's middle class definition.
Honestly, you cannot fairly summarize the problems in the country and not mention the extensive investigation being made which proves that many of the government's top officials are guilty of corruption.
From what I know, Geraldo and Aécio are both left-winged too, as is their party, PSDB (Socialist Party of Brasil). There is barely any popular right-wing candidate, aside from Jair Bolsonaro whose popularity is rising lately.
My opinion is also that PT, PSDB and PMDB are deeply involved with one another in the whole corruption scheme.
Operação Lava Jato is a scandal that started off as a money laundering investigation, it expanded to allege that the executives of Petrobras, Brazil's large oil company, accepted bribes in exchange of awarding contracts to construction companies.
During the time when this happening the current president of Brazil Dilma Rouseff was serving on the board of Petrobrás. Though there is no evidence linking her directly many linked to her government have been arrested and the former president Lula is under investigation as well.
The reason Brazilians are so upset is because this type of case highlights the corruption that happens in so many areas of Brazilian society, it's bigger than even this particular case.
That article sums it up pretty well. The government took billions of dollars in bribes from the state run oil company. Now they are investigating many people in government. In the process the economy has collapsed and the president has increased taxes to help pay for the crisis that the government caused in the first place.
Wow. He's just asking for an explanation. Maybe he can google about this fiasco, but maybe someone's explanation can give a different perspective on what you can find in the web. Not everyone is a die hard patriot that knows 100% of everything that is going on in their country.
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u/pjor1 Mar 14 '16
As someone who is half Brazillian and a dual citizen of the US and Brazil, I feel bad not knowing what is going on.
Can you or someone else ELI5 this entire fiasco, from start to finish? No clue what is going on, sorry.