Rousseff offers vote if restored to power
Suspended President Dilma Rousseff made a lastditch effort on Tuesday to avoid impeachment, telling Brazilian lawmakers she would let voters decide if they want an early presidential election if she is restored to power.
Rousseff had been publicly mulling the idea of a plebiscite for weeks as the Senate moves closer to an impeachment vote on charges her administration violated fiscal rules to hide a gaping budget deficit. The vote is scheduled for Aug 25, four days after the end of the Summer Olympics being held in Rio de Janeiro.
She made the proposal official in a long letter “to the federal senate and Brazilian people” in which she mixed expressions of regret for failing to listen to her compatriots with stern admonishments for critics she accused of plotting to carry out a “coup.”
“The full restoration of democracy requires that the population be the one to decide what is the best way to expand governability and perfect the Brazilian political and electoral system,” she said in the letter, which she also read in a message. “It’s the only way out of the crisis.”
Rousseff’s current term ends in 2018. If she is permanently removed by the Senate, interim President Michel Temer would serve out the term.
Under her proposal, Rousseffoncebackinpowerwould call a nationwide plebiscite asking Brazilians whether they supported an early election and a sweeping political and economic reform.
The idea has some popular appeal. A poll taken last month by Datafolha said 62 percent of Brazilians favored a new election as a way out of the country’s debilitating political crisis. But the same poll found almost as many Brazilians did not want Rousseff back in power.