Brazil’s president forced to rescind order calling out the army against protesters

by Bill Van Auken, WSWS

Brazil’s President Michel Temer Thursday was forced to rescind an executive order he had issued the day before calling the army into the streets and giving it powers of arrest for the period of one week.

The measure was ostensibly taken to quell a protest Wednesday in the capital of Brasilia called by the unions and social movements to oppose pension and labor “reforms” attacking basic social rights and to demand Temer’s ouster and replacement through the calling of direct elections.

Calling out the army, however, had the air of an act of desperation on the part of a president who is facing multiple corruption charges and is viewed as illegitimate by the majority of the Brazilian population.

The most recent opinion polls indicate that Temer, the former vice president who was installed in the presidential palace through the impeachment of his predecessor, Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff in August 2016 on trumped-up charges of budgetary irregularities, is opposed by 95 percent of the population, with 85 percent favoring the immediate convening of new elections…

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