The small difference between the votes of both candidates, around 3.5 million votes, made this election to be the most disputed since redemocratization. Dilma was sworn in as
36th President of Brazil on 1 January 2015 in a ceremony conducted by
Renan Calheiros in the floor of the
Chamber of Deputies.
International reaction , in 2015. Presidents and representatives of different countries saluted the victory of
Dilma Rousseff on 26 October over
Aécio Neves. • -
Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner used her social media to salute Dilma. In a letter directed to Dilma and published in her Facebook page, Kirchner celebrated the results of the election in Brazil which, according to her, "shows the Brazilian society reaffirming their unshakable commitment with a political project that guarantees economic growth with social inclusion". Also stated that the mutual cooperation between Brazil and Argentina would increase from this moment. • -
Bolivian President
Evo Morales highlighted president Dilma's victory and stated that it "represents the model of change" in Brazil and in the Latin America. "Bolivia salutes the triumph of partner Dilma. We greet the continuity of the model of change in Brazil and the region", declared the leader in Shinahota, according to the state agency ABI. • - Salvadoran President
Salvador Sánchez Cerén congratulated Dilma for her victory through his Twitter account. • - Ecuadorian President
Rafael Correa celebrated, in his Twitter account, the "amazing victory of Dilma in Brazil". "We salute the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, for her today's electoral victory", commented the Ecuatorial chancellor,
Ricardo Patiño, also using the social network. • - German Chancellor
Angela Merkel sent a telegram congratulating Dilma Rousseff for her reelection, expressing in text the possibility to keep the ties between both countries. "I congratulate you for the reelection as president of Brazil. I am glad that we can keep our political and economic cooperation. In face of the challenges that both nations are facing, only together and as partners, we can overcome them", stated Merkel. • - Russian President
Vladimir Putin also congratulated Dilma for her reelection and stated "the victory in the polls is a proof of the popular support for her politics". In his telegram, Putin expressed that "the results of the voting showed that the people supports Dilma Rousseff's politics and looks for the economic development of the country and the strengthening of its international positions". The Russian president also rated as very good the attention Dilma gives to the "strengthening of the Russian-Brazilian strategic association". • - American President
Barack Obama congratulated Dilma and requested that the ties with Brazil should be strengthened, which, according to Obama, it was "an important ally of the United States". The American president also expressed interest to schedule a meeting to discuss the possibility to "reinforce the collaboration for the world security and the respect to human rights, as well as deepen the bilateral cooperation in areas like education, energy and, mostly, trade". • - Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro highlighted Dilma's victory in his official Twitter account, shortly after the announce of the first results. "Victory of Dilma in Brazil. Victory of the People. Victory of Lula and his legacy. Victory of the people of Latin America and Caribbean", stated in his account. Besides chiefs of state, the international press also reverberated Dilma's victory.
The New York Times in the
United States highlighted the reelection on the front page of the newspaper and states that the victory "endosses a leftist leader who has achieved important gains in reducing poverty and keeping unemployment low"; Argentine
El Clarín highlighted on the front page that Dilma won by a narrow margin "at the end of a tough campaign, full of denounced and mutual accusations"; for the
United Kingdom Financial Times, "Dilma now faces the task of uniting a country divided by the most aggressive campaign of recent times, to resurrect a creeping economy and pacify hostile markets";
Venezuelan
El Universal highlighted on its first page
Aécio Neves' reaction, who acknowledged his defeated and highlighted in his speech that "the priority now is to unite Brazil"; French
Le Monde mentioned the defeat in São Paulo, main electoral college of the country, but "compensated by the victory in Minas Gerais, the second largest electoral college and Aécio Neves' political fief"; Spanish
El País brings as a highlight an article signed by journalist Juan Arais, from Rio de Janeiro, entitled "The political change in Brazil will have to wait".
Crisis . It is notice the low growth in 2014 and severe drops in the following years. From 2014 and on, right after the results of the elections, an economic crisis began in Brazil, having as a consequence the strong economic recession, succeeded by a retreat of the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2 consecutive years. The economy reduced in around 3.8% in 2015 and 3.6% in 2016. The crisis also brought a high level of unemployment, which reached its peak in March 2017, with a rate of 13.7%, representing more than 14 million Brazilians unemployed. In 2016, the effects of the economic crisis were widely felt by the population, who needed to adapt their bills to the financial reality. According to a research made by the Industry National Confederation (CNI) in that year, almost half of the interviewed (48%) began to use more public transportation and 34% don't have a health insurance anymore. The deepening of the crisis made 14% of the families to change their children's schools, from private to public, with a percentage higher than the one verified in 2012 and 2013, before the crisis. Besides that, consumers change products to the cheaper ones (78%), waited for sales to buy higher value goods (80%) and saved more money for emergencies (78%). In the first quarter of 2017, GDP rose 1%, being the first growth after 8 consecutive quarter drops.
Minister of Finance Henrique Meirelles said that, in that moment, the country "left the largest recession of the century". of groups in favor and against the
Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. Yet in 2014 also began a political crisis. The match of this crisis happened on 17 March 2014, when the
Federal Police of Brazil began a series of investigations and would be known as
Operation Car Wash, initially investigating a corruption scheme and money laundry of billions of reais involving many politicians of the largest parties of the country. The operation had direct impact in the country politics, contributing for the impopularity of Dilma's administration, just as, posteriorly, for Temer's administration, as long as many of their ministers and allies were targeted of the operation, such as
Geddel Vieira Lima and
Romero Jucá. The task force responsible for the operation was disbanded on February 1, 2021, and integrated into the Special Task Force to Combat Organized Crime (, abbreviated GAECO), a division of Brazil's Federal Public Ministry (, abbreviated MPF). This merger concluded the operation, which comprised 80 phases and generated multiple offshoots within and beyond Brazil. The protests against Dilma Rousseff government, due to the results of Operation Car Wash, occurred in many regions of Brazil, having as one of the main goals the impeachment of the president. The movement brought together millions of people on 15 March, 12 April, 16 August and 13 December 2015 and, according to some estimates, were the largest popular mobilizations in the country. The protest of 13 March 2016 was considered the largest political act in the history of Brazil and occurred over all the country, overcoming also
Diretas Já, which occurred during the transition period from the
Military Dictatorship to the redemocratization.
Rousseff's impeachment On 2 December 2015, president of
Chamber of Deputies,
Eduardo Cunha, accepted one of the seven impeachment requests against Dilma, which was registered by jurists
Hélio Bicudo, Miguel Reale Júnior and
Janaína Paschoal, and delivered to Cunha 2 months before. In the original request, were included denounces of decrees signed by the president in 2015, to release
R$ 2.5 billions (
US$ billion), without Congress approval, nor prevision on budget. This operation is known as
fiscal pedaling (
Pedalada fiscal), and it's characterized as administrative misconduct. The acceptance of the impeachment request was considered by part of the press as a retaliation against the president's party, which deputies announced on that same day that they would vote against Cunha in the Chamber's Ethics Committee, where he was investigated for a supposed participation in the scheme denounced in Operation Car Wash. Cunha denied any "bargain" relation with the government, stating that "the decision to accept the impeachment is factual, is concrete, has clear tipification", but kept attributing to president Rousseff responsibilities about the investigations against him. According to
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dilma didn't have "the will of doing politics" and didn't have any meeting with party caucuses to try to repeal the impeachment. , which took the process to the
Federal Senate. Due to the parliamentary recess and the sues filed in the
Supreme Federal Court with the objective to decide formally the rite of the process only on 17 March 2016, the Chamber elected, with open voting, the 65 members of the Special Committee which analyzed the impeachment request against Dilma Rousseff. There were 433 votes in favor of the committee membership and 1 against. On 11 April, the Special Committee, with 38 votes in favor and 27 against, approved the report, which defended the admissibility of the process. The report, made by deputy
Jovair Arantes (
PTB-
GO), went for voting in the floor of the Chamber. On 17 April 2016, a Sunday, the Chamber of Deputies, with 367 votes in favor, 137 against, besides 7 abstentions and 2 absences, impeached Rousseff and authorized the
Federal Senate to install the process against the president. On 6 May 2016, the Senate Impeachment Special Committee approved, with 15 votes in favor and 5 against, the report of senator
Antônio Anastasia (
PSDB-
MG), in favor of the impeachment. On 11 May, Justice
Teori Zavascki denied a government request to null the process. With the decision, the Senate kept the voting that would decide the suspension of Rousseff from office. On 12 May 2016, with 55 favorable votes, 22 contrary and 2 absences, the Federal Senate authorized the opening of the impeachment process, and determined her suspension from the Presidency of the Republic for up to 180 days. On 31 August, the Federal Senate, with a voting of 61 to 20, removed Rousseff from office of President, but kept her political rights. With the impeachment,
Michel Temer, who was
Vice President of Brazil and Acting President until that moment, took office as president until the end of the term. == See also ==