The darkest hour
The economy is in freefall. The president is likely to be impeached. Brazil’s democracy faces its toughest moment since the end of dictatorship
ON THE night of April 17th Brazil stood still. In the streets, hundreds of thousands held their breath, many sporting the yellow-and-green jerseys of the national football team, brandishing Brazilian flags, vuvuzelas at the ready. Millions more were glued to television screens in homes, bars and restaurants across the country.
Contrary to appearances it was political, not sporting, history that was being made. At 11.07pm it was all over. Bruno Araújo of Pernambuco state, a federal deputy for the centre-right opposition Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB), cast the 342nd vote in Congress’s 513-seat lower house in favour of sending impeachment charges against the president, Dilma Rousseff, to the Senate for trial. That breached the necessary threshold of two-thirds; Ms Rousseff’s foes in the chamber burst into song. Outside Congress, and in dozens of cities, car horns blared.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "The darkest hour"
The Americas April 23rd 2016
From the April 23rd 2016 edition
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