Brazil vice-president discussing government transition with opposition parties

At the invitation of Vice-President Michel Temer, the leaders of PSDB opposition party in the two houses of Congress, Senator Cássio Cunha Lima and Deputy Antonio Imbassahy, met with the vice-president at his office on Tuesday evening (Apr. 26) to discuss details of a potential government transition should the Senate impeach President Dilma Rousseff in the coming days.

In a cautious tone, Senator Cunha Lima said his party's support for the government in case of a Temer administration is conditional upon the adoption of “programmatic commitments”, a change in the way the country is led, and the forming of a political coalition. “That's very simple. We have proposals. [Our] party has a structure, a direction, and [our] talks must respect these institutional guidelines,” he said.

According to Lima, the PSDB may actually support Temer “regardless of appointments for government positions. What matters now is a commitment to Brazil and to the points we feel are important for overcoming the crisis.”

He said that Brazil needs to downsize the state, restore balance in the government's accounts, and take steps to increase productivity through privatizations and concession contracts with the private sector.

“Brazil needs to become a modern, competitive country on a global level, so that by expanding our existing foreign markets and opening up new ones we can work our way out of this crisis,” Cunha Lima said as he left the meeting with the vice-president.

In the document with commitments the PSDB is planning to propose to Temer next Tuesday (May 3), the party should demand that the potentially incumbent government ensure the continuation of the Operation Car Wash corruption investigations into the Petrobras scandal and implement cyclic changes in the economy.

For Deputy Imbassahy, “Operation Car Wash must continue with the government fully focused on cracking down on corruption, graft and economic reconstruction. We as members of the lower house approved Rousseff's impeachment trial on account of her impeachable offenses, but also in the hope of seeing the country's economy being rebuilt.”

In addition to the PSDB's, Temer also met with leaders of such other parties as the PR, the PTB, the PSC, the SD, and the PMDB. According to the PTB leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Deputy Jovair Arantes, Temer should set about forming his administration “because things are happening now. The Senate could certainly impeach Rousseff and he should be ready for that. We're on a countdown now.”

Translated by Mayra Borges