Demonstrators march holding a banner with a drawing depicting Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff that reads in Portuguese "In defense of democracy, Dilma stay" during a protest. Sao Paulo, Brazil. 2015. AP Photo/Andre Penner.
Political debate in Brazil is reaching a new level. Since May this year, when the incumbent President Dilma Rousseff was ousted and replaced with the interim government of Michel Temer, the country has been contesting the narrative surrounding the political ‘coup’. Meanwhile, the country continues to struggle with the surrounding political, institutional and representational crisis, one that since February, has been crippling the entire institutional framework of the Republic and its infamous (or rather, infamous) balance of power.
The roots of this beleaguering crisis are deep and diverse. But it is clear that it is the distorted political alliances that come as a consequence of Brazil’s ‘proportional’ institutional framework are of central importance to the debate. That is to say, that electoral system that serves the legislative powers at their various levels (municipal, state and federal), in a system of coalition Presidentialism, form the national order we see today – with all its oddities and failings. And this national order has produced a Congress that is incompatible with the programme set in 2014 by the suspended president, Dilma Rousseff, of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT).
