Brazil’s Senate Poised to Suspend Rousseff Pending Trial
Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Brazilians want to see Rousseff impeached.
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A majority of Brazil’s Senate indicated on Thursday it will vote to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial for breaking budget laws, signalling the end of 13 years of rule by the country’s leftist Workers Party.
In a marathon session of speeches, 41 of the 81 senators in Latin America’s largest nation had indicated by the early hours of Thursday morning that they would vote to try Rousseff, a move that would suspend Brazil’s first woman president.
The final vote, expected around dawn, would make Vice President Michel Temer acting president during her trial, which can last for up to six months.
Outside Congress, where a metal fence was erected to keep apart rival protests, about 6,000 backers of impeachment had earlier chanted “Out with Dilma” while police used pepper spray to disperse gangs of Rousseff supporters, who hurled flares back. One person was arrested for inciting violence.
Rousseff prepared for defeat by planning her exit from the presidential palace. Aides said she will dismiss her ministers on Thursday morning and tell them not to help a transition to a Temer government because she considers her impeachment illegal.
Temer plans to swear in new ministers on Thursday afternoon, Senator Romero Juca, head of his Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), told reporters.
Rousseff, who has been in office since 2011, has seen her popularity crushed by Brazil’s worst recession since the 1930s and a two-year probe into a vast kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras.
The prospect of business-friendly Temer taking power has driven Brazilian financial markets sharply higher this year, on hopes he could cut a massive fiscal deficit, restore investor confidence and return the economy to growth.
The political crisis has deepened Brazil’s recession and comes at a time when Brazil hoped to be shining on the world stage as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August.
Opposition senators blamed Rousseff for running into the ground an economy now considered the worst performing among major developing nations, pursuing what they called populist policies that led to high inflation, recession and unemployment.
Senator Blairo Maggi, one of Brazil’s biggest soy farmers, who is slated to become agriculture minister in a Temer cabinet, said:
Solid Majority
The Supreme Court rebuffed a last-ditch bid by Rousseff to halt the Senate vote with an injunction. Justice Teori Zavascki rejected as “legally implausible” the government’s argument that impeachment was flawed because it was begun out of revenge by the former speaker of the lower house.
In a momentous session that many Brazilians followed live on television, each senator was given the chance to speak. A final vote could take place as late as 5:00 am (0800 GMT) on Thursday.
‘Time For Her to Go’
Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Brazilians want to see Rousseff impeached. But the surveys also indicate scant popular support for the 75-year-old Temer.
“I voted for Dilma, I believe in her as a leader, but I also think she has done such a bad job that it is time for her to go,” said Leticia Britto, a 23-year-old business student from Sao Paulo, visiting Brasilia.
Rousseff has denied committing any crime that warrants impeachment charges. A former member of a Marxist guerrilla group who was tortured during Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, she has called her impeachment a coup and vowed to fight the process until the last minute.
“I will not resign, that never crossed my mind,” Rousseff said in a speech on Tuesday, to cheers from supporters.
Rousseff’s stance that democracy is under attack has won sympathy among some of Brazil’s leftist neighbours. The US government, meanwhile, said it hoped the country pulls through the crisis.
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