Catholic theologians and commentators in Brazil have added to the pressure being piled on the left-wing Workers Party (PT) Government of Dilma Rousseff by mass protests across the country.
In a blog written last Sunday the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff spoke of his disillusionment with the party he has supported and of its need to renew itself.
“[The Workers’ Party] has to accept the truth: it got many things right that benefited millions who lived in poverty and exclusion. But it also committed errors: it let itself be captured by the ‘demon’ of power as an end in itself,” Boff wrote. “There was shameful corruption on the part of important people who destroyed the dream of a whole mass of people who believed in it.”
The bishops’ conference, meanwhile, maintained a resolute silence and refused to comment on the nationwide protests.
Boff published his remarks as an estimated 700,000 demonstrators took to the streets to accuse Ms Rousseff of failing to stamp out corruption and blame her for the worst economic slump in 25 years. The national day of action was the third of its kind this year against Ms Rousseff, who was reelected president by a narrow margin last October. Hundreds of thousands took part in demonstrations in March and April, while on Sunday anti-Rousseff marchers took to the streets in 200 Brazilian towns and cities: 350,000 demonstrated in Sao Paulo, 30,000 in Brasilia, and thousands filled Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach.
In Copacabana demonstrators carried banners denouncing communism and calling for military intervention. This lent some credence to a remark by a former centre-right minister, Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira who was quoted by Boff on Sunday. “A phenomenon has appeared that I had never seen in Brazil. Suddenly I saw a collective hatred from the upper class, the rich, against a party and a president,” Boff quoted Bresser Pereira as saying.
Similar criticism came before the demonstrations from another well-known Catholic supporter of the PT, the Dominican writer Frei Betto, who told the newspaper Folha de São Paulo that it might be the end of the road for the president. “I wonder if she will hold out against the psychological battering of another three and a half years with less than 10 per cent of approval,” Betto speculated. However, he claimed that the PT had abandoned its values by concentrating on welfare payments instead of creating adequate education, health and transport systems. “They created a nation of consumers, not of citizens,” he said.
Earlier this week Betto told The Tablet, “For the first time I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel.”
The Brazilian bishops conference press office said that the conference had no comment to make on the demonstrations. A meeting of its council is scheduled for next week. The protesters say Ms Rouseff must have known about a corruption scandal in the state oil firm, Petrobras, as alleged bribery took place when she was head of the company. She was exonerated in an investigation by the attorney general and denies involvement, but several senior members of her Government have been implicated.
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