Brazil's Rousseff Feels Heat of Unruly Coalition
By JOHN LYONS And PAULO PRADA
SÃO PAULO, Brazil—Six months after coming to power in a landslide victory, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is riding a booming economy and high popularity. Yet her six-month-old administration has become paralyzed by political infighting and embarrassing scandals.
Late Wednesday, Transportation Minister Alfredo Nascimento became the second cabinet minister in a month to quit under a cloud of corruption. News reports allege he grew rich while his agency instituted a 5% kickback rate on contracts it awarded. Mr. Nascimento denies illegal activity and has vowed to aid investigations.
That followed last month's departure of chief of staff Antonio Palocci—the president's top political operator. Mr. Palocci, who denies wrongdoing, resigned after refusing to explain a huge rise in his wealth, or name the corporate clients of a consulting business he ran while in government office.
The resignations have added a new layer of complexity to Ms. Rousseff's bigger problem: Trying to keep her unruly political coalition happy. Coalition parties upset about being excluded from big government jobs are undermining Ms. Rousseff's legislative agenda by siding with the opposition on some votes, and delaying others.
"A good part of the federal government is paralyzed," said Alexandre Barros, a political consultant in Brasilia.
A Rousseff aide denied that the government was paralyzed, and pointed out that the government is cutting spending, and rolling out new infrastructure initiatives. He said that replacing ministers accused of corruption should be seen as a sign of strength and that minor disputes with allied parties is normal in a coalition government.
Still, Ms. Rousseff's early woes illustrate the challenge the career bureaucrat faces in seeking to fill the shoes of her predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a charismatic former union leader who was ineligible to run last year after two terms.
Ms. Rousseff, a hard-driving technocrat in her first elected job, lacks the political touch Mr. da Silva developed as a consummate negotiator during a long climb from union official to the presidency. Mr. da Silva created the coalition of pork-barrel populists, evangelicals and leftists that backs the government, and by some accounts, only he has the skills to manage it.
"Her political upbringing is about giving orders and having people follow them, and she always had Lula around to make things work," said Roberto Romano, a professor of ethics and politics at Brazil's Unicamp University. "Now she's finding out that Congress isn't there to take orders, they are there to grab funds."
Even Ms. Rousseff's handling of the corruption scandals is being viewed as the work of a political novice. Corruption allegations are common in Brazil's freewheeling politics, and deflecting them is an important skill. Mr. da Silva was re-elected by a landslide even as his government was under investigation for running a bribe-per-month program to pay off congressmen.
But Ms. Rousseff is botching the job, analysts say, further alienating political allies. When Mr. Palocci, the former chief of staff, was first battling the influence-peddling scandal that later forced him to quit, she let the uproar fester by remaining silent and out of the public eye.
When it came to Mr. Nascimento this week, she sent conflicting signals about whether she thought the problem was severe. On Monday, after the first allegations surfaced, she supported the minister emphatically. On Wednesday, she changed her mind.
To be sure, Ms. Rousseff has a reputation for overcoming adversity and is still in the early months of a four-year term. She was jailed and tortured by a military government in her 20s, and underwent cancer treatment before running for president. She has put more of her own mark on the government in recent weeks by naming hard-charging women who match her own style to high-profile cabinet jobs.