Time for Temer

THE street vendors who set up around Brazil’s congress must have been disappointed. Police had expected thousands to gather for the closing stages of the impeachment trial of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president. But when the senate voted by 61 to 20 to remove her from office on August 31st, the esplanade, bisected by a fence to prevent clashes between her foes and her supporters, was eerily empty. Her former vice-president, Michel Temer, who has been interim president since May, was sworn in hours later to serve out the remaining 28 months of her term.

It was a muted end to a remarkable era. For the past 13 years Ms Rousseff’s left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) has dominated politics. The party broke barriers. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Ms Rousseff’s predecessor and patron, became the first working-class president in 2003; she was the first woman to hold the job. The global commodity boom paid for programmes that helped 40m people lift themselves out of poverty. Many Brazilians remain grateful.

But Ms Rousseff’s impassioned self-defence before the senate on August 29th moved few of them. The charge against her—that she tampered with government accounts to...Continue reading

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