Brazil is not a banana republic
Article on Brazil's international credibility amid the Lava Jato crisis, Zero Hora, 2017.
Translated from the original.
There were those who tried to undermine the country's credibility abroad, but the thesis did not prevail.a
Brazil is going through an unprecedented crisis. Many companies are being targeted by Lava Jato. There are millions of people affected by unemployment, perhaps as a result of economic formulas that did not work in recent years. Our country faces the worst crisis ever recorded after an economic boom, considering that in 2010 there was its largest GDP growth in 20 years, at 7.5%. The problem is not merely economic, but one of redefining paradigms. In medicine, the word “crisis” defines the moment in the evolution of a disease toward cure or toward death. In economics, it would be the transitional phase between one surge of prosperity and another of depression, or vice versa.
Car Wash uncovered a network of criminal operations, corruption, and unlawful practices that fed systematically on the inefficiency of public authorities. The dismantling of these criminal organizations, together with the diagnosis of the pathologies, leads to a necessary collective catharsis. Citizen participation, public-opinion oversight, the activism of republican institutions, and even some excesses in the spectacularization of proceedings are consequences of the democratic regime.
The balance of forces occurs, precisely, in the guarantee of the Judiciary's independence, which judges who is to be investigated and accused of offenses, and may repress abuses and accusatory distortions. Brazil revealed to the world a global anti-corruption agenda, and that is no small thing. It showed that its institutions have credibility and strength. In the perception of international public opinion, we are carrying out an “ethical clean-up” in our own backyard.
We are in a position, respecting the rules of the game, to carry out the impeachment of a ruler, and to go even further against those who are currently in power, as well as to establish the responsibility of businesspeople and politicians at the highest levels of the Republic. Some tried to undermine the country's credibility abroad, but the thesis did not prevail. Brazil is not a “banana republic.”
Fábio Medina Osório
Former minister of the Office of the Attorney General of the Union