Power sharing, budget cuts help Rousseff in Brazil crisis

Brasilia

THE "new Dilma" is starting to produce results.

By embracing power-sharing deals and budget cuts that she shunned during her first term in office, President Dilma Rousseff has begun to ease the economic and political crisis plaguing Brazil, congressional leaders and economists say.

Ms Rousseff's decision last week to hand formal responsibility for negotiating with Congress to Vice-President Michel Temer, a leader of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), was a milestone that should help ease tensions with the biggest party in her coalition and dissuade it from sabotaging her economic agenda as it did earlier this year, legislators said.

Brazil's stock and currency markets rallied as investors hoped the more stable political climate, and new signs that Ms Rousseff is shifting towards more market-friendly policies, will eventually help Latin America's largest economy recover from what is expec…