Examine Leadership Issues And Dynamics Related To The Current Events Developing In Brazil

Leadership Issues and Dynamics Related to the Current Events Developing in Brazil
Student Name:
Affiliated Institution:
Leadership Issues and Dynamics Related to the Current Events Developing in Brazil
When Lula Da Silva, the former president of Brazil left office at the start of 2011, the country was extensively viewed as South America’s gold standard for social progress and economic development. As he was leaving office, he handpicked Dilma Rousseff to succeed him. At the moment, with his successor having already faced trial and impeached, Brazil is largely regarded as an economic failure. Michel Temer, Rousseff’s successor and current president of the country, is also facing accusations of obstruction of justice and passive corruption. This paper examines the leadership issues and dynamics in relation to the events currently developing in this Latin American country.
Brazil is a country rich in cultural diversity, fertile lands, and natural resources but has been marred by bad quality leadership over the past few years. Leadership is understood as the ability to lead other people. A good leader in the society plays an integral role in the prosperity of regions, towns, areas or country that he/she leads. Any good leader is expected to possess such admirable quality and character traits as honesty, discernment, focus, experience, ethics and wisdom among many others (Grandy & Sliwa, 2017). A good leader also has integrity, which is defined as soundness of moral principles and uprightness of character (Rochford et al., 2017). The fact that recent presidents of Brazil have been accused of receiving bribes and one of them has actually been jailed for corruption, namely Lula Da Silva, demonstrates that these leaders clearly lack integrity.
Nothing better demonstrates the intricate web of leadership decay in the South America’s largest and most populous nation than Operation Car Wash, which is the sweeping probe into corruption. Started in the year 2015, this investigation did not implicate Dilma Rousseff directly. Even so, it unearthed corruption amongst a number of individuals who belong to her Worker’s Party, together with politicians from nearly all of Brazil’s many political parties. The corruption scandals increased a generalized mistrust in the political system of the country (Marina, 2017). The door was then open for Dilma Rousseff’s ousting, which was achieved in a period of just 8 months.
Operation Car Wash is thought to be the largest corruption case in the world. The scandal is so far-reaching that it may force President Michel Temer to resign considering that he has been mentioned recently for supposedly arranging and being paid millions of dollars in bribes. Even so, the president denies all the accusations, and his attorney claims that the president is too old to answer them. However, Temer was not the only president of Brazil being investigated. Rousseff, who was indicted before being removed from office in the year 2016, and Lula Da Silva, who was her mentor and forerunner, are also accused of receiving millions of dollars in corruption (Marina, 2017). Both Lula and Rousseff also deny the allegations. Lula faced graft charges related to supposed bribes that he received from the construction firm Oderbretch. He was found guilty and sentenced to nine years and six months in prison. As a leader, the president’s responsibility for the nation is huge, and so is his guilt when he is involved in criminal wrongdoing.
Furthermore, 8 cabinet ministers of President Temer are also being investigated, and so is Aecio Neves who is a powerful senator. In addition, Eduardo da Cunha, the head of the country’s Chamber of Deputies received bribes of $40 million and was arraigned in court and sentenced to fifteen years (Marina, 2017). Hundreds more lawmakers, business executives, political bosses, mayors and governors have been caught up in Operation Car Wash. They are part of a grand network of money laundering, hush money, kickbacks, and bribes focused largely on Pebrobras, a corporation in the oil and gas industry. The top officials of this firm, in addition to political bosses like Eduardo da Cunha, received bribes from business organizations in exchange for Petrobras work contracts which were inflated very much (Kiernan & Trevisani, 2017). Since the detection of the corruption scheme in the year 2015, prosecutors in the country have still not reached the bottom in their probe. It is estimated that the entire amount might be more than five billion dollars. Furthermore, the criminal wrongdoing might cost Petrobras thirteen billion dollars in legal settlements and contract losses.
Owing to the lack of quality leadership, the nation is also facing economic problems. It is, in fact, going through its worst economic slump in 20 years and this is largely because of the economic and political uncertainty that the country has generated. The economy of Brazil in the year 2015 shrunk by about 4% and foreign direct investment (FDI) between 2014 and 2015 declined by 12% (Girgenti, 2016). In addition, interest rates and inflation are going up, whilst government debt is surging. Also, wages have been dropping and joblessness has been increasing. The impact of corruption on this economic drop in Brazil cannot be overemphasized. Every year, about three to five percent of the country’s gross domestic product is lost to corruption (Girgenti, 2016). Petrobras, which is the nation’s government-owned oil corporation, was Brazil’s biggest firm and investor before the corruption scandal and accounted for an estimated 10% of the economy. As a result of Petrobras scandal, however, in 2015 Brazil experienced an estimated 1%, which is roughly $27 billion, in GDP loss (Girgenti, 2016). The corporation is also among the country’s biggest employers and since December 2013, it has decreased the number of its staffs by roughly 34%, and had plans of reducing its workforce even further by thousands more. In addition, the company cut its investment plan for the 2015-2019 period by 25% (Girgenti, 2016).
Companies in the engineering, construction and oil/gas service industries have been hit particularly hard. It is of note that 2 construction firms which conspired with the state-owned Petrobras went bankrupt about a year ago and in 2015 thousands of people in Brazil’s construction sector were dismissed (Girgenti, 2016). The direct consequence of Brazil’s corruption-related economic slump has been uncertainty, political unrest, as well as significant drops in public spending. For instance, in the state of Rio, the budget for state police was decreased by over $600 million (Girgenti, 2016). There were also been indirect impacts on the 2016 Olympics event since there were delays in the construction of Olympic venues and other major infrastructure.
The notion of admirable and quality leadership is, and has always been, a part of society. Any given society would naturally want to be governed by good leaders, and Brazil is no exception. The fact that Brazilians over the past few years have held demonstrations and protests on streets across the country demanding for the impeachment and trial of its bad, crooked leaders clearly demonstrates their yearning to be led by for quality leaders (Trevisani & Dickerson, 2016). Elected leaders in general are a reflection of what the people, as a society, co...