Brazil’s Rousseff urges vote against ‘coup’ in trial

BRASÍLIA: Suspended Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff told senators in emotional testimony at her trial that voting for her impeachment would amount to a “coup d’etat.” Declaring her innocence and recalling how she was tortured under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, Rousseff warned that Latin America’s biggest country was on the verge of losing its democracy. “Vote against impeachment, vote for democracy .... Do not accept a coup,” the 68-yearold leftist leader said as she defended herself before senators who are widely expected to remove her from office by Wednesday. About 2,000 supporters rallied in her support near the Senate building in the capital Brasilia, waving flags — a fraction of the crowds her Workers’ Party has drawn in the past. Protesters also massed in Rio de Janeiro and in Sao Paulo, where they lit fires and riot police fired tear gas to disperse them. Brazil’s first woman president is accused of having taken illegal state loans to patch budget holes in 2014, to mask the country’s problems as it slid into its deepest recession in decades. Momentum to push her out of office is also fueled by deep anger at months of political paralysis and a vast corruption scandal centered on state oil giant Petrobras. All indications point to the Senate impeaching Rousseff when voting starts Tuesday, ending 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers’ Party.