Protests mount in troubled Brazil
Lawmakers re-launch impeachment proceedings against president
BRAZIL faced a deepening political crisis and mass street protests yesterday as opponents and backers of President Dilma Rousseff mobilised after lawmakers renewed efforts to drive her from office. With Rousseff fighting an impeachment drive and financial markets apparently betting on a collapse of her government, her embattled left-wing support base vowed to take to the streets yesterday.
Late on Thursday, police in Brasilia fired tear gas and stun grenades to keep at bay angry protesters demanding her resignation.
The ongoing protests capped a day of political drama as lawmakers re-launched impeachment proceedings against Rousseff, 68.
The courts, meanwhile, blocked her bid to bring her powerful predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva into the cabinet.
Scores of protesters camped overnight near the headquarters of the anti-Rousseff FIESP industry federation in Sao Paulo, vowing to stay put until she quits.
“We are going to protest like they did in Ukraine,” said one protester, Cristiane Galvao, 44. “People are bringing us water and food. We will stay here until Dilma falls.”
Rousseff and her allies are fighting off corruption allegations and struggling with discontent over a deep recession.
The setbacks for the leftist leader came a day after new evidence in a corruption scandal: a wire-tapped telephone call that suggested Rousseff connived with her predeces- sor and mentor Lula to shield him from prosecution.
Rousseff swore in Lula, 70, as her new chief of staff on Thursday.
A judge in Brasilia issued a ruling suspending that appointment over allegations that she was trying to protect him from corruption charges by giving him ministerial immunity.
That ruling was overturned on appeal late on Thursday, but a separate federal court in Rio de Janeiro upheld another lawsuit blocking Lula’s appointment. Brazil’s lower house of congress then launched a committee to draw up a motion on whether to impeach Rousseff over corruption accusations.
The committee has two weeks to present a motion to the house, which must vote on whether to launch an impeachment trial in the senate. A decision to go forward with it requires a two-thirds majority.
Rousseff is accused of manipulating the government’s accounts to boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign. She accused her enemies of mounting a “coup” against her.
The Sao Paulo stock exchange soared 6.6% on Thursday. Analysts said investors were anticipating the fall of the government.
Lula and Rousseff between them have governed Brazil for the past 13 years. He presided over a boom, but political and economic crises are now gripping Latin America’s biggest economy.
Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2011, is charged with accepting a luxury apartment and country home as bribes from executives implicated in a multibillion-dollar corruption scam at state oil company Petrobras. Lula denies involvement in the scandal. – AFP