Impeachment vote has Brazil divided amid corruption scandal

BRASILIA — Brazil is on the verge of a historic impeachment vote in its National Congress that could oust Dilma Rousseff, the president of South America’s most populous country.

If two-thirds of lawmakers in the lower house opt for an impeachment trial in a vote today, and the upper house later endorses the decision by a majority, the leader of the world’s fourth-biggest democracy will be suspended for 180 days and replaced by her vice president, Michel Temer.

A trial in the Federal Senate — which could take place while Rio de Janeiro stages South America’s first Olympics in August — would follow. But by then, Rousseff ’s presidency might well be over.

The country is looking nervously over the brink, divided over its future and the very legality of the process that Rousseff and her supporters say is an institutional coup and an attack on Brazil’s young democracy.

Brazil’s two-decade military dictatorship ended in 1985, and since then it has already impeached one president, Fernando Collor de Mello, in 1992. But Collor’s impeachment, on corruption grounds, was widely supported, while Brazil is split over Rousseff ’s fate.

Pro- and anti-impeachment protesters are camped out in Brasilia and a metal barrier has been erected outside Congress to keep them apart. Inside, politicians are fighting a last-minute battle to persuade a dwindling group of undecided deputies to make up their minds.

On Friday afternoon, the pro-impeachment camp said they had enough votes to win. Hours later, the government had turned some deputies back in its favor and was claiming it could survive.

Rousseff, who was narrowly re-elected in 2014, is accused of breaking a responsibility law in using state bank funds and accounting trickery to cover gaps in her budget. She denies the allegations.

Hanging over the process is an enormous corruption scandal involving billions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks at state-run oil company Petrobras, which has entangled lawmakers and officials from her own Workers’ Party and its coalition allies. Last month, her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was taken in for questioning in connection with the inquiry.

The scandal has prompted mass street protests across Brazil over the past year calling for Rousseff and Lula to be jailed. In polls, a majority of Brazilians support Roussef ’s ouster.

To confound her problems, Brazil is swamped by its worst economic recession in decades.

Temer, who Rousseff accuses of conspiring against her, has been holding talks with queues of politicians at his official residence, the Jaburu Palace. Lula has also been hosting negotiations with lawmakers in a luxury hotel near Congress.

Rousseff ’s supporters question the legal basis for her impeachment and say those orchestrating the vote, such as lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha, are guilty of corruption and Rousseff is innocent. Cunha has been charged by Brazil’s Supreme Court for his involvement in the Petrobras scandal and Rousseff has not.

“It is not just unconstitutional. It is not just illegal. It is immoral,” said Jean Wyllys, a federal deputy for the small Socialism and Freedom Party.

Across Brazil, actors, feminists, university students, rural workers’ groups and trade unions have staged events protesting impeachment.

“I did not commit a crime of responsibility. There is no charge of corruption or diverting public money against me,” Rousseff said in a video speech released Friday on the Internet.

Her opponents counter that she was chair of the Petrobras board and head of the Mines and Energy Ministry while much of the corruption was going on. A former government senator has accused her of attempting to interfere in the investigations.

Legal experts are divided as to whether the fiscal maneuvers she is accused of, also utilized by previous presidents such as Lula and Fernando Cardoso, justify impeachment. Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts used them to reject Rousseff ’s government’s 2014 accounts.

“This was never considered illegal,” said Camilo Zufelato, a professor of procedural law at the University of Sao Paulo’s law faculty in Ribeirao Preto.

“I don’t see why that means that she should be acquitted. At some point we are going to have to start taking the law seriously,” said Ivar Hartmann, a law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s law school in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is accused of breaking a responsibility law in covering gaps in her budget.