Credibility of Brazil's Interim President Collapses as He Receives 8-Year Ban on Running for Office

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But the oozing corruption of Temer's ministers has sometimes served to obscure his own. He, too, is implicated in several corruption investigations. And now, he has been formally convicted of violating election laws and, as punishment, is banned from running for any political office for eight years. Yesterday, a regional election court in Sao Paulo, where he's from, issued a formal decree finding him guilty and declaring him "ineligible" to run for any political office as a result of now having a "dirty record" in elections. Temer was found guilty of spending his own funds on his campaign in excess of what the law permits.

In the scope of the scheming, corruption, and illegality from this interim government, Temer's law-breaking is not the most severe offense. But it potently symbolizes the anti-democratic scam that Brazilian elites have attempted to perpetrate. In the name of corruption, they have removed the country's democratically elected leader and replaced her with someone who -- though not legally barred from being installed -- is now barred for eight years from running for the office he wants to occupy.