The Senate impeachment committee listened to the author of the report, Senator Antonio Anastasia, read out from its 440 pages detailing the alleged illegalities of the accounting methods that Rousseff used to augment her government’s spending power in the run-up to the 2014 election.
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The Senate will vote next Tuesday whether to accept the charges, where a simple majority would suffice.
Rousseff was suspended from office for 180 days in May by a Senate vote, with Michel Temer taking over as acting president.
Ana Amelia, from the conservative PP party, told AFP she predicts the committee will vote 16 to five on Thursday in favor of pushing Rousseff’s case along.
The staging of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro was meant to be the crowning moment of Brazil’s evolution into one of the most powerful and successful young democracies in the southern hemisphere. Given that impeachment was justified based on the need to fight corruption, that is an ironic fact indeed (despite the high number of politicians in her party implicated in these personal-corruption scandals, including her predecessor Lula da Silva, Dilma herself never has been).
Senator Lindbergh Farias, a member of the PT and a fierce Rousseff supporter, attacked the process against the suspended president.
She is charged with breaking budgetary laws and looks nearly certain to be thrown out of office by the Senate in the next few weeks at the end of an impeachment process that she says has been manipulated by Brazil’s right, calling Temer the chief “conspirator”.
Reuters news agency cited government sources this Thursday saying that 50 leaders were originally expected, but only 28 have so far confirmed their attendance, rather than the 50 who were expected.
“Imagine that you are going to throw a party, you have worked towards it for several years, creating the conditions, placing the lighting, calling the media, and on the day of the party, someone arrives and takes your place and takes over the party”, said Rousseff.
Crusading Federal Judge Sergio Moro yesterday criticized the legislative immunity granted to government officials that protects them from prosecution while in office, in front of dozens of lawmakers who enjoy that very privilege. “I think there is not much reason for this special forum”, he said during a public hearing of the special committee of the Lower House to debate a bill with measures to combat corruption. The same woman then called the judge a “fascist”.
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The irregularities allegedly committed by Rousseff were linked to the deep economic crisis now affecting Brazil, it added.
