Much ado has been made about Brazil's precarious political situation ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics. But how did the country come to be in such a tight spot? In large part the answer lies in the massive number of political parties active in Brazil, which has led to a particularly fragmented congress. It is an old trend, observed most famously by Brazilian political scientist Sergio Abranches in a 1988 paper titled "Coalition Presidentialism: The Brazilian lnstitutional Dilemma." According to Abranches, one of Brazil's most serious institutional challenges is what he deemed to be a "coalitional presidentialism" — a system by which the president must form and govern over a multiparty coalition, which becomes more difficult the more parties are involved. Brazil's was a concerning political model, but a temporary one, Abranches argued.