No Script

Please Wait...

Al-Ahed Telegram

Brazil Lawmakers Give Green Light to Rousseff Impeachment Trial

Brazil Lawmakers Give Green Light to Rousseff Impeachment Trial
folder_openLatin America access_time7 years ago
starAdd to favorites

Local Editor

Brazilian lawmakers on Sunday authorized impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff in a rowdy, circus-like showdown that plunged Latin America's biggest country into profound political crisis.

Brazil Lawmakers Give Green Light to Rousseff Impeachment Trial

Opposition deputies in the lower house of Congress needed 342 of the 513 votes, or a two thirds majority, to send Rousseff to the Senate, which will now decide whether to open a trial. They got there after five hours of voting.

Wild cheering erupted from the opposition at the 342nd vote, countered by furious jeering from Rousseff allies in a snapshot of the radical and bitter mood consuming Brazil just four months before Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympics.

Outside Congress, where tens of thousands of people were watching giant TV screens, the split was echoed on a mass scale -- with opposition supporters partying and Rousseff loyalists in despair.

Several thousand police stood by and the rival camps were separated by a long metal wall.

If, as many expect, the Senate goes on to impeach the leftist president, Vice President Michel Temer -- who abandoned Rousseff to become a key opponent -- will assume power.

But opposition celebrations could be short lived, analysts say.

Rouseff, 68, is accused of illegal accounting maneuvers to mask government shortfalls during her 2014 reelection. Many Brazilians also hold her responsible for the economic mess and a massive corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras, a toxic record that has left her government with 10 percent approval ratings.

The president and her allies had lobbied frantically in a last-minute effort to turn the tide, with her mentor, the fiery ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, flying back from his home in Sao Paulo to join the final assault.

Now the decision by the lower house moves the matter to the Senate, which is expected to vote in May on whether to open a trial. In case of a green light there, too -- which experts also consider almost certain -- Rousseff would step down for 180 days while the trial got under way.

If the Senate then voted by a two-thirds majority for impeachment, Rousseff would be ousted. Temer would stay on until elections in 2018.

A senior Rousseff ally said there would be no surrender.

"The coup plotters have won here in the house," said Jose Guimaraes, leader of the Workers' Party in the lower house of Congress.

"President Dilma [Rousseff's] government recognizes this temporary defeat but that does not mean that the war is over," Guimaraes said. "The fight will continue in the streets and in the Senate."

In Brasilia, about 53,000 pro-impeachment demonstrators massed outside Congress, according to a police count. About 26,000 turned out on the pro-Rousseff side of the metal fence.

In Rio de Janeiro about 3,000 people each from the two sides demonstrated at separate time slots next to Copacabana beach.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

Comments