"We’ve seen, under the Obama regime, the perfection of these soft-power coups," Ives tells Loud & Clear host Brian Becker. "This one is slightly more refined and it may be years before we know the full story, but we can kind of see the markers of the US hand."
With as many as 175 government deputies in the new Brazilian government accused of corruption, the coup is already making a dramatic impact in the country.
"Recent polls show that over 67% of Brazilians have a negative evaluation of the government," Ives says. "People are taking to the streets. Things are still unclear about how they will unfold."
Even Michel Temer, head of the post-coup interim government, is implicated in the corruption scandals.
"He has been cited as a direct beneficiary of the corruption scheme," she says. "There is proof going back to 1996 that Temer has been receiving briberies for doing public contracts. Overbilling public contracts and getting kickbacks."
The ultimate objective of the coup appears to be the delegitimization of Brazil’s progressive labor and social movements.
"Their real goal is to destroy the prestige, destroy the power, of the workers party," Ives says, "which has become, really, the vehicle for the tremendous advances that Brazil has made over this past decade-and-a-half of workers’ party power."
