Brazil’s new president faces uncertain tenure

Latin America

Brazil's new president faces uncertain tenure 2

Brazil woke up with a new president, a conservative, who will govern Latin America’s biggest economy through the end of 2018.  The country has mixed reactions to Michel Temer after the dramatic removal of the country’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff.

CCTV America’s Lucrecia Franco reports. Follow Lucrecia C. Franco on Twitter @LucreciaFranco

This was the response to Michel Temer’s first address to the nation: “Good evening, I assume the presidency of Brazil after a democratic and transparent decision from the National Congress.”

Protesters took to the streets across the country. In Sao Paulo, activists closed main roads and clashed with the police.

Others celebrated the Senate’s vote that sacked Rousseff and ended 13 years of Workers’ Party rule.

Temer was sworn in despite being implicated in the massive corruption scandal at the state-run oil firm Petrobras. Rousseff, who chaired Petrobras from 2003 to 2010, was cleared of any corruption.

The Senate impeached her, instead, for breaking budget laws-a move she says amounts to a legislative coup d’état.

Political scientist Mauricio Santoro said the impeachment will not end the political crisis in Brazil. There has been regional fallout, too. Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have recalled their ambassadors.

“Brazilian neighbors in Latin America are very concerned about what is going on in Brazil right now because many presidents in the region are afraid that they are going to be the victims of similar processes in their own countries. So that is why we are seeing the strong reaction from Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and even Cuba,” Santoro said.

Temer is spending his first day as Brazil’s president at the G20 summit in China. It will be a test, analysts are saying, for the new business-friendly leader to secure more foreign investment in Brazil-investments that could help pull this country out of its longest recession in history.