The start of the torch relay comes just a week before the Brazilian senate is expected to suspend Rousseff for six months as it considers her impeachment.
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Around 12,000 torch bearers will carry the flame across Brazil’s 26 states, passing through more than 300 cities and towns-a total of 20,000 kilometers by road and 16,000 by air.
“We know political problems exist in our country today”, she said.
Brazilian volleyball player Fabiana Claudino holds the Olympic torch after the lighting ceremony at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 3, 2016. Brazil on Tuesday started the 95-day Olympic torch relay which will end at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in August for the 2016 Olympic Games opening ceremony.
“The Olympic torch will be received with joy in all cities in our huge Brazil”, Rousseff told reporters.
“The Olympic torch will be received with joy in all cities in our enormous Brazil”, she said.
“We are experiencing political instability”.
“It’s important to fight, and we know how to fight”.
An investigation could well mark the political end for the beleaguered leader of the world’s 7th-largest economy as it would be the first time that Rousseff would be directly implicated in Brazil’s biggest-ever graft case.
She is accused of illegally manipulating government budget accounts, but says the charges are politically motivated and that her opponents, led by Temer, are mounting a coup to eject her from office.
If suspended, she will hunker down at the presidential residence on half pay for up to 6 months.
The lower house of Congress voted overwhelmingly to impeach her last month.
Given the political makeup of the Senate, a vote to suspend her looks nearly certain, although the final outcome is harder to predict. However, a two-thirds majority is needed to remove her completely from office, making the final outcome harder to predict. She vowed not to let her troubles disrupt the games.
However, her Workers’ Party, which has dominated and transformed the country since 2003, is still fighting to prevent impeachment from turning into a nationwide shift to the right.
The request will be analyzed by Supreme Court justice Teori Zavascki and is not public because it is based on recorded phone calls between Rousseff and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, news site G1 reported.
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Polls show Lula would be one of several frontrunners, trouncing the unpopular Temer.
