 |
| Brazil's Senate-imposed President Michel Temer gestures during a ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, May 12, 2016. | Photo: Reuters |
Senate-imposed
President of Brazil Michel Temer met with U.S. Embassy staff on at
least two occasions to brief them on the country's politics.
Whistleblower website WikiLeaks described the Senate-imposed President of Brazil
Michel Temer as a “U.S. Embassy informant” in a tweet and provided two
links where Temer's candid thoughts on Brazilian politics serve as the
basis for a report by the U.S. embassy in Brazil.
The cable from Jan. 11, 2006, states that Temer met with embassy
officials on Jan. 9, 2006 to give his assessment of Brazil's political
landscape ahead of the 2006 general election that saw Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva reelected to the presidency.
Temer became interim president
after the Brazilian Senate voted to proceed with an impeachment trial
against President Dilma Rousseff, forcing her to step down for a period
of 180 days.
Temer has been
criticized for making clear his intention of pursuing a pro-business,
neoliberal program as president, despite the fact that Rousseff and her
Workers' Party were reelected on the basis of a progressive program of
social investment and wealth redistribution.
The leaked cable indicates that Temer has always held a neoliberal outlook.
“Temer criticized
Lula's narrow vision and his excessive focus on social safety net
programs that don't promote growth or economic development,” reads the
cable from Jan 11, 2006.
The cable also reveals that in 2006 Temer's party, the PMDB, was
considering an alliance with both the leftist Workers' Party and the
right-wing PSDB.
The PMDB's
tendency to switch sides would later prove to be a critical element in
efforts by Brazilian elites to oust Rousseff.
Despite having
been elected vice president alongside Rousseff, Temer betrayed his
former allies and joined in efforts to oust the president via
impeachment.
A June 21, 2006
cable shows Temer held a second meeting with U.S. embassy staff to once
again appraise them on the political situation in Brazil.
In that cable Temer laments the lack of power given to PMDB ministers during the Lula government.
“Temer spoke caustically of the Lula administration's miserly rewards for its allies in the PMDB,” reads the cable.
Temer's
bitterness over being left out of Rousseff's governance decisions was
said to be one of the factors that motivated his eventual support for
her impeachment.
Source: Telesur
|
Print This 
Print This 