Latin America's Most Unpopular Presidency Grinds to Standstill

[Judi Lynn]

By Sami Adghirni and Simone Preissler Iglesias
April 26, 2018, 5:00 AM CDT

- Brazil’s Michel Temer government officially ends in December
- Congress reluctant to pass legislation ahead of elections

Earlier this week Brazil’s President Michel Temer called the ten Senate leaders of his ruling coalition to discuss the year’s legislative agenda. Only four showed up.

Later that same day, the plenary of the lower house, which was due to vote on key bills to help the country recover from the worst recession on record, was conspicuously empty. Instead, many legislators focused their attention on a soccer match on the wide-screen TV in the nearby coffee lounge.

Whatever hope was left that the Temer administration could push at least the less controversial market-friendly reforms is quickly evaporating. While the president was never popular, the political savvy he accumulated in over half a century in politics allowed him to secure congressional approval for pro-business reforms, including last year’s deregulation of the labor market. Now legislators are mostly concerned with the October general elections and Temer is seriously weakened after corruption scandals that don’t seem to stop. Last month two people close to him were arrested on corruption charges.

"The government is dead," said Marcos Montes, a lawmaker from the ruling coalition’s PSD party. "The government burnt a lot of fat defending itself, it has no reserves left."

More:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/latin-america-s-most-unpopular-presidency-grinds-to-standstill