Brazil's Ex-Guerrilla-in-Chief Isn't Going Down Without a Fight
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-21/brazil-s-ex-guerrilla-in-chief-isn-t-going-down-without-a-fight
For much of the past year, as Brazil plunged into economic and political crisis, President Dilma Rousseff seemed cornered in her bunker. Bookish and awkward, she rarely left the presidential palace, pouring over infrastructure reports, focusing on the technical side of painful austerity measures.
But in recent months, as opposition efforts to impeach her gained momentum, something in her visibly shifted. Rousseff, a former urban guerrilla who refused to break under prolonged torture, snapped out of her state of paralysis. With the crisis now focused on her, she seems to be sending a message: I will not make it easy and step aside...
The tenacity that led Rousseff, 67, to fight against military dictatorship as a young woman now makes her cling to power with remarkable serenity. This is despite the longest projected economic crisis since the Great Depression, the lowest approval ratings on record of any president and accusations she illegally financed her election campaign and used accounting tricks to whitewash budget figures.
“She doesn’t think she did anything wrong and resigning would be for her an admission of guilt," said Joao Augusto de Castro Neves, Latin America director of political-risk consulting firm Eurasia Group. "She will go to the end.”
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