BRAZILIAN SENATORS VOTED OVERWHELMINGLY TO SUSPEND PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF AND OPEN AN IMPEACHMENT TRIAL, EFFECTIVELY TOSSING HER LEFTIST WORKERS’ PARTY FROM OFFICE AFTER 13 YEARS IN POWER.
Turmoil likely to linger through Olympic Games
•Brazilian senators voted overwhelmingly Thursday to suspend President Dilma Rousseff and open an impeachment trial, effectively tossing her leftist Workers’ Party from office after 13 years in power.
Rousseff is accused of improperly using billions of dollars in loans from government banks to patch budget gaps and fund popular social programs. But the vote became a broader referendum on her unpopular leadership amid Brazil’s worst economic crisis in 80 years and corruption scandals that have swept up much of the country’s political elite.
Rousseff, the country’s first female president, vowed that she will fight on, calling the impeachment vote “dirty,” “fraudulent” and “a coup.”
Rousseff, a former leftist militant who was jailed and tortured as a young woman by Brazil’s military dictatorship, said her suspension was “an injustice that hurt more than torture.
“I will fight with all the available legal tools to serve out the term I was elected to,” she said. “I may have made mistakes, but I committed no crimes.”
Rousseff’s chances for a comeback are remote. Her defiant statements came after an all-night debate that ended with 55 of Brazil’s 81 senators voting to put her on trial, far more than the simple majority needed to oust her. Under Brazilian law, she is now suspended for up to 180 days during the trial.
The vote, and Rousseff’s promise to fight, suggest that the political turmoil is likely to continue as Brazil will take the world spotlight this summer: The opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is less than three months away.
Her accusers say Rousseff had systematically deceived lawmakers and the public about the state of the country’s finances to boost her re-election prospects in 2014 and conceal her mismanagement of the economy. The claims only cover her present term, however, and not the re-election bid.
Just hours after the vote, she insisted again that her predecessors used the same bookkeeping tactics. “It was not a crime in their time. It’s not a crime in mine,” she said.
But her accusers say her accounting tricks involved far greater sums than anything in the past, and Brazilian senators will now decide whether her actions constitute a “crime of responsibility” under Brazilian law.
The early-morning vote Thursday was the equivalent of impeachment in most democracies. But legal experts say that, in the Brazilian context, a politician is only considered “impeached” if found guilty.