The ethical collapse

We are facing the collapse of the party system, plagued by inauthenticity, representative bankruptcy, and an absolute renunciation of any kind of ideological or programmatic choice.

No fewer than 117 federal deputies are under investigation, some for criminal reasons, others for vote buying, and almost all accused of corruption.

In turn, and crowning the scandal that is only unseen by those who choose not to see it, more than a dozen senators are the targets of lawsuits of various kinds, ranging from electoral offenses to common crimes.

One of them, then the leader of the government, was arrested while in office, which demonstrates both the nature of the upper house's composition and its pusillanimity.

Its current president survives by fighting off lawsuits filed against him by the Public Prosecutor's Office, some of which have already been accepted by the Supreme Federal Court.

This scenario, which suggests an ethical collapse and reveals an impending political tragedy, is reproduced, like a fractal, throughout the country, in state and municipal parliaments, indicating the risks that threaten the makeshift representative democracy of our sad times, infected by the lethal virus of illegitimacy, which further distances it from popular sovereignty.

Congressman Eduardo Cunha, removed from his parliamentary mandate by an unprecedented order from the Supreme Federal Court and currently awaiting the inevitable revocation of his mandate (notwithstanding the complicit solidarity of his political allies), is a defendant in lawsuits of the most varied nature.

Regarding the ineffable former president of the Chamber of Deputies, one can say that he is a professional with a rich track record, an iconic figure of the new Brazilian political order, which governs us haphazardly, violating the constitutional order and harming everything that resembles honor and dignity.

From today's petty, impoverished, pedestrian political order emerges the dwarfism of figures in the lineage of Michel Temer, Jair Bolsonaro, Ronaldo Caiado, Eliseu Padilha, Romero Jucá, Geddel Vieira Lima..., our current rulers, and, among others, that lamentable Waldir Maranhão, now returned to ostracism, whose rise to the interim presidency of the Chamber of Deputies is in itself the most compelling demonstration of the bankruptcy of a Parliament that does not care about itself.

Cunha's parliamentary survival, incidentally, stems directly from his position as leader of the 'Centrão', the stronghold that elected him and still sustains him, even after he pettily initiated the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff.

In this 'Centrão' (center bloc) gather – and from there launch their assault on the Republic – the worst elements of political opportunism and welfare programs, the worst representation of agribusiness, land grabbers and landowners who murder indigenous people and quilombola communities, the worst of neo-Pentecostal fundamentalism, the worst of the contractors' blocs, the worst lobby of tax evaders financed by the FIESPs (Federations of Industries of the State of São Paulo) of the world.

The worst part of the backwardness. The 'Centrão' (center bloc), revived by Temer and now in the majority, is a sure sign of a return to the past.

The serious, crucial issue, the rot that is building our institutional tragedy, is that today we are governed by this horde of the worst, masters with the rope and cleaver of the three branches of the Republic.

This consortium of treacherous interests brings together more than just an absolute majority in the National Congress and, thus, ideologically led by backwardness and supported by the mainstream media, possesses the objective conditions to promote conservative restoration, the resurrection of an archaic, dependent, oligarchic, reactionary Brazil.

This coalition – the result of the meeting of the worst of Dilma Rousseff's base with the worst of the opposition to her government and to Lula's policies – is currently in command of the Planalto Palace (and the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary branches are working hand in hand) of a return to backwardness reminiscent of the worst moments of the military dictatorship, aggravated by the subservience to foreign interests and anti-national sentiment, of which the military cannot be accused.

The institutional dysfunction, however, is profound, it is structural, and its severity is independent of the figures and minor characters that make up our political landscape.

We are facing the collapse of the party system, plagued by inauthenticity, representative bankruptcy, and an absolute renunciation of any kind of ideological or programmatic choice.

Proliferating thanks to the irresponsibility of the STF-TSE duo, most parties – and let's always remember the exceptions offered by left-wing parties, despite their collective crisis – are now nothing more than mere acronyms, meaningless 'alphabet soups,' almost all transformed into business projects that benefit from the party fund and sell television time in the electoral process, in addition to support in Congress for each vote of interest to the Government or lobbies, blackmailing both.

Outside of the formal parties, corroding them, surpassing them, demoralizing them, act the 'real parties', the inter-party blocs, such as the most notorious ones, the beef, football, bible and banking blocs, the bloc of radio and television station owners, and even the serious blocs, such as the health and education blocs, among others, but always signifying the organizational, programmatic and doctrinal failure of the parties.

The so-called 'coalition presidentialism' is in its death throes, after having led the Dilma government to the well-known political debacle.

The need for profound, structural reform—what Darcy Ribeiro would still call today "cleaning up Brazil"—is, however, the task of our Congress, the great beneficiary of all these ills.

What to do? Without objective answers, but only dreams, we can only believe that political exhaustion, exacerbating the crisis, will lead this Congress, or whatever takes its place in 2019 (if we even get that far), to, pressured by the clamor of the streets, finally carry out the reforms without which it may be writing its own obituary.

The election in the Chamber of Deputies

The dispute over the succession of Cunha-Maranhão (a full-length portrait of the degeneration that pervades the entire Brazilian political organism) was fought between a representative of the deep 'Centrão' (center bloc) and an organic leader of the right, who emerged victorious.

In his speech upon assuming the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, the representative of the DEM party, formerly of the PFL and Arena parties, one of the leaders of the ongoing coup, thanked everyone who supported him, thanked interim president Temer who fought so hard for him, but, significantly, also thanked the PT and PCdoB parties.

Once again, and this time more unforgivably than ever, the parliamentary left has proven incapable of correctly interpreting reality and thus, failing in strategy, has ended up renouncing its role as an agent, immobilized by a false Hamlet-like doubt between pragmatic and programmatic paths, without knowing that no option is inherently good or bad, since what qualifies them are the circumstances.

Finally, and because of all this, the left was left without a role, neither marking the necessary political position nor interfering in the electoral process, and still owing its militants an explanation for having, after Luiza Erundina's candidacy had already been launched, sometimes opted to support the PMDB candidate, weakened by his party colleague Temer, and sometimes to launch yet another anti-candidacy.

Ultimately, despite our doubts, our hesitations, our misjudgments, our lack of strategies, and our attachment to tactics as isolated facts, the election of Congressman Rodrigo Maia as interim president represented yet another victory for the Brazilian right, an important step in implementing its long-awaited and frustrated conservative restoration over no less than four presidential elections!

The next political pillar will, it seems, be established in August, when the decision on impeachment is made in the Federal Senate.

The old lesson remains: those who do not learn from experience are condemned to repeat their mistakes.