If suspended president Dilma Rousseff's administration was a disaster in managing the economy, through its baleful practices and its slipshod treatment of minorities, Michel Temer's administration, supported by a coalition, has found a way to be even worse, despite only being in office two months.
The actions that the Temer administration have taken couldn't be more contradictory. In the face of pressure from protesters, those who rallied against Dilma, the Worker's Party (PT) and corruption, Temer declared that he would put together a ministry of "notables," but he did the exact opposite: He invited various figures who have been investigated in their own scandals.
Additionally, Temer has named allies of suspended Deputy Eduardo Cunha, possibly the most corrupt politician in the history of Brazil, to key government positions, including the appointment of André Moura, himself accused of attempted murder -- among other things -- to the position of Government Leader in the Chamber of Deputies.
In the economic arena, Temer has decided to increase the salaries of judicial civil servants. In some cases these increases have been as high as 40 percent, an unfit measure in the face of the dire economic crisis facing the country.
Speaking on social security reform, Temer, who himself retired at the age of 55, stipulated a new minimum age for retirement: 70. This, in a country where the life expectancy in some states doesn't even reach 70.
On Friday July 8th, two new storm clouds hit the front pages of newsstands. First, a declaration by Robson Andrade, president of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), at an event which included the attendance of interim President Temer. Andrade stated that "France, which currently allows 36 [hours in a work week], has now passed legislation to enable the work week to reach up to 80 hours and a work day up to 12 (...) We need to be open to make these changes."
Note: In France, the referenced legislation now makes it possible for a work week to reach at maximum 60 hours; the president of the CNI added 20 hours to this figure independently. The change in worker's rights laws in Baudelaire's homeland has stirred up large and constant protests, generating serious social instability and lowering the already uncomely popularity numbers of French president François Hollande.
The other storm cloud surfaced during the same event when Michel Temer declared before an audience of businessmen: "In your businesses and in other business which may someday be connected with yours, it would be good to give preference to those people who have been educated abroad, because, whether we want it so or not, it may be that these workers come equipped with technological knowledge which they learned abroad."
In a moment in which stories chronicling the rise of unemployment continue to fly off the presses, recommending business leaders to give preference to people who have been educated abroad is irresponsible. Principally because those who have been educated abroad, in the majority of cases, are people who are already in better financial conditions than those educated at home.
The Temer administration has been marked more and more by one word: retrogression. Its allies are the most backward in Brazilian politics. With Michel Temer, the Bullet, Bible and Beef brigade (BBB) has continued to gain voice and sway in the Chamber of Deputies. The current situation is so bizarre that a general who lauds the coup of 1964 only narrowly lost out on the nomination for president of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).
But apparently the interim president doesn't much care about this torrent of bad news. After everything, as if the rest wasn't enough, he has been an active participant in attempting to avoid the suspension and expulsion of suspended Deputy Eduardo Cunha, with whom he has been friends for decades, from office. And the most incredible part of it is that, even with all these headlines piling up, those who headed out to the street, those who beat pots and pans to protest corruption, have simply disappeared.
It's true that Dilma Rousseff and the Worker's Party have committed unforgivable errors and have contributed to the deepening political crisis in which the country now finds itself. However, Rousseff didn't commit a crime which deserved to be punished with her suspension and the possible termination of her presidency. At the current moment, the best way forward for Brazil is the return of President Dilma, even if she returns only to negotiate with Temer the resignation of both politicians and call for new elections.
Terminating the Dilma presidency and maintaining Temer as president would engender the worst types of retrogressive politics imaginable for the future of this country. In this moment, certain sectors of this society look back with nostalgia at the authoritarian regime of the past. These sectors see in the Temer administration a chance to return to a certain time and place, which, through long decades of progressive social struggles and conquests, they lost.
That's why it's understandable that many critics of the Dilma administration cry, "Down with Temer."
And it looks like very soon they will be crying, "Come back to us Dilma."
This post first appeared on HuffPost Brazil. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.