At the People’s Summit in Chicago, Naomi Klein tells Paul Jay that the suspension of Dilma Rousseff’s presidency in Brazil should be called a coup
Story Transcript
PAUL JAY, TRNN: What’s happened to Dilma in Brazil is being described by many people, including yourself, as a coup. Why? NAOMI KLEIN: Well, because we’re talking about an elected government with a clear popular mandate. And a pretext for her removal from power, and that pretext being allegations of corruption. She’s been replaced by a government that is corruption-laden, has lost several of its members, because they, in fact, themselves are guilty of what they accused Dilma of. JAY: Actually far more. KLEIN: Far more. And we now have transcripts of conversations where it’s clear that they saw her removal as necessary to take the heat of investigation off of themselves. So this is a way of using bureaucratic and legal measures to remove a democratically-elected government. It’s kind of a bureaucratic coup d’etat. But the ultimate–the results are the same, which is running roughshod over the expressed will of the population. And it’s very, very sad. This is an enormously populous country that has fought hard for democracy, had a very, very long dictatorship, and finally brought in a government led by a workers’ party under Lula that has been reducing inequality in a very meaningful way. Not a perfect government. I mean, this is not about whether or not they’re perfect. It’s about whether the Brazilian people have the right to choose their own government. And clearly they do. That right has been removed. And if it can be removed in Brazil it can be removed in any country.
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