Seven Uncertainties in Lenten Brazil

Brazil is getting back to business after an exuberant carnival that brought irrepressible Brazilian humor to bear on serious national travails, including the Zika virus, Lula’s legal troubles, and the Olympics. Reality’s bite may be harsh after two months’ holiday respite from the high political drama of 2015. The coming year will be jam-packed, including the highly contested election later this week of new party leadership, a PMDB party leadership convention in March, the April deadline for ministers and governors to step down if they are running for office, the August Olympics, and the October municipal elections. Layered over these events will be the ongoing Lava Jato and Zelotes corruption investigations, campaigns against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, and of course, the continued drama of Chamber of Deputies’ president Eduardo Cunha’s cage match with President Rousseff.

Looking ahead, the only major certainties for the year ahead are that GDP growth will be negative, and that there will be significant political upheaval, as a consequence of the elections and the corruption investigations, which have no end in sight. But there are also significant uncertainties that overlap with a compressed political calendar to raise questions about where Brazil will stand a year from now: