Every so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of the state jams; the veils of consent are torn asunder; and the tools of power appear disturbingly naked. Brazil is living through one of those moments — it is dreamland for social scientists; a nightmare for everyone else.

Dilma Rousseff was elected president in 2010, with a 56-44 percent majority against the right-wing, neoliberal Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) opposition candidate. She was reelected four years later with a diminished yet convincing majority of 52-48 percent, or a difference of 3.5 million votes.

Dilma’s second victory sparked a heated panic among the neoliberal and US-aligned opposition. The fourth consecutive election of a president affiliated to the center-left Workers’ Party (PT) was bad news for the opposition, among other reasons because it suggested that PT founder Luís Inácio Lula da Silva could return in 2018. Lula had been president between 2003 and 2010 and, when he left office, his approval ratings hit 90 percent, making him the most popular leader in Brazilian history.