The day after Sunday’s proceedings in Brazil, where its lower house of Congress voted to impeach the country’s president Dilma Rousseff, a key opposition figure involved in the process is to head to Washington for several meetings.
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Congressman Aloysio Nunes, of the center-right party PSDB, is to meet with various U.S. officials and lobbyists, including the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Washington lobbying firm Albright Stonebridge Group that was formerly headed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
The choice to send Nunes to Washington is likely a strategic one. He lost the bid for the vice presidency with PSDB in 2014 when Rousseff won, and will now play a key role in her impeachment. He has also repeatedly called for closer ties to the U.S. Like many other members of the House who pushed for impeachment, Nunes has many corruption allegations against him.
Such an undertaking is likely to further fuel the suspicions of Brazil’s left -- that the U.S. is explicitly involved in destabilizing Brazil in order to get rid of Rousseff’s Worker's Party that has a close trading relationship with China. Rousseff has also been vocal against the NSA’s spying, that affected all of Brazil’s industry, population and the president herself.
The decision to send Nunes was made by the pro-business PSDB Vice President Tremer, who will be installed as president during Rousseff’s 180-day suspension, if Brazil’s Senate agrees to carry out an impeachment trail of the president.