FIFA Protests and Brazil
In 2013, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians in over 300 cities engaged in protests against developments towards the 2014 FIFA World Cup that would be held in a number of host cities across Brazil. The anti-World Cup protests were rooted in the distaste of millions of dollars worth of government expenditures being put towards the building of stadiums and other related infrastructure, instead of being put towards Brazilian communities. The targets of the protests were public spending concerns, corruption and insufficient public services. These protests, however, did not end with the World Cup.
In the weeks following the re-election of Dilma Rousseff, thousands of Brazilians had called for her impeachment. Some individuals went insofar to saying that they would rather return to a military dictatorship than have her as their President. In late October of this year, approximately 2,500 with another 5000 protestors filled the streets of São Paulo. The number of protestors was by no means comparable to the FIFA protests, nor were they centred on concerns of public service deficiencies. However, there was a definite sense of continuity with concerns of corruption. Case in point being the latest Petrobras scandal, where Rousseff had admitted to knowing of the the company’s money laundering practices and Petrobras Paulo Roberto admitted that money embezzled from the company was given to the Roussef’s Worker’s Party in order to buy political favour. Under these circumstances, it appears that even flagship state companies are seen as fair targets to finance politics, and legislative coalitions continue to be held together by the glue of corruption.
As a means of drawing attention to their concerns about corruption and desire for Roussef’s impeachment, the Brazilian social movement opted to file a We the People petition in Washington; which is traditionally used by American citizens as a means to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing the United States. Upon creating the petition, the website received a threshold of 100,000 signatures within only 48 hours. In theory, the President of the United States would have to consider what the protestors were grieving about. The complaint that they brought to the table was that they were concerned that Brazil was evolving into Venezuela, jacked on high doses of corruption in core political institutions. More specifically, they asked Obama to position his administration “against the Bolivarian communist expansion in Brazil promoted by the administration of Dilma Rousseff.”
Although 30,000 signatures is more than enough to garner attention from President Barrack Obama, he has not taken the petition into serious consideration by any means. In fact, it is unlikely that the petition will cause any re-examination of Washington’s Brazil policy, because Obama has emphasized that there is strategic value in upholding US-Brazilian relations for concern mostly pertaining to energy and trade, and is committed to deepening and exploring new areas of collaboration with Brazil’s government.
If the United States does not acknowledge or address the increasing dissatisfaction amongst the Brazilian people, then who will? Will Brazil see a return to protests comparable to those established during the World Cup? If corruption in Rousseff’s government ceases to persist, then the answer the latter of the two may be ‘Yes’. At this time, there is no way of determining what the future holds for these protesters. Perhaps the recently selected Finance Minister Joaquim Levy will bring some transparency to Brazil’s government and financial ties; but this cannot be determined just yet.
