Rousseff: crisis real, but Brazil to bounce back

President Dilma Rousseff expressed her confidence in the country's economic recovery. She admitted the crisis is real, but said that Brazil will get back on track. “We must be humble and acknowledge the difficulty, but also brave enough to overcome it. […] You can rest assured that Brazil will once again grow and generate jobs.”

During her speech at the inauguration ceremony of the Anita Garibaldi bridge, in the municipality of Laguna, Santa Catarina, Rousseff praised the Workers' Party's (PT) work in the federal government, noting that, over the last 13 years, the government has built “a much stronger country, more capable of facing challenges than it has been at any other moment in the past.”

She said she will not give in amid the adversity. “Some people, when faced by difficulty, step back and give up. We're not that kind of people. We face up to the difficulty, because one can only overcome it by facing up to it.”

The president's words are yet another response to the criticism she has received from the opposition regarding the unfavorable economic situation and the money embezzlement scheme at the state-run oil giant Petrobras. On Tuesday (Jul 7), in an interview with newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Dilma Rousseff declared she does not feel intimidated by possible impeachment calls, and ruled out any possibility of resignation. In her view, the attempts at cutting short her term of office are politically based and pro-coup.

In a note, Senator Aécio Neves, head of the lead opposition party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), countered that “[They call] a coup everything that goes against the PT! In reality, the pro-coup speech comes from the PT itself, a party that doesn't acknowledge society's law enforcement and representation agencies in a democracy. Clearly, the PT's pro-coup speech aims to embarrass and constrain legitimate institutions carrying out their duties to the fullest.”

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira