Slower, lower, weaker: Brazil under Rousseff

Brasilia’s political crisis is deepening. Is there still hope for energy investors?

BRAZIL’S president Dilma Rousseff has suffered some blows lately – but none as stunning as that in April, when the lower house of congress voted overwhelmingly for her impeachment. The decision has tipped Latin America’s largest economy, and one of its most important oil producers, into its worst political crisis in decades and sets up a long and ugly period for the country. “It’s not the beginning of the end. We’re at the beginning of a fight – a long, drawn-out fight,” Rousseff, the former guerrilla fighter, declared after the vote. Besieged by a faltering economy and an epic corruption scandal at Petrobras, Rousseff now sees her political fate rest with Brazil’s upper house. Given the wid