She has denied any wrongdoing and denounced her impeachment as a right-wing conspiracy that used an accounting technicality as a pretext to illegally remove a government.
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The 81-member Senate voted 59 to 21 in favour of going ahead with the trial early this morning after a marathon debate which lasted 20 hours.
Impeachment would not only seal Rousseff’s political fate, but would bring an end to 13 years of leftist rule in Brazil: Her political mentor, president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva preceded her in office.
After her suspension in May, Rousseff was replaced by Michael Temer, 75, a constitutional lawyer and longtime politician who has been serving as interim president ever since.
Thereafter, additional recordings were revealed, featuring Temer’s anti-corruption czar advising another PMDB ally, Senate leader Renan Calheiros, on how to sidestep the vehicle wash corruption probe. Rousseff herself has not been implicated, but Brazilians overwhelmingly say that she knew about the corruption during her time as chairwoman of Petrobras in the previous administration. Rousseff, who has remained in the presidential palace, has also floated the possibility of calling new elections.
Cardozo said there was still hope. A final vote after all the evidence has been presented and weighed is set to take place at the end of the month.
Still, the situation does not look hopeful for Rousseff, the first female president in Latin America’s largest nation. If two-thirds of the senators vote against her, she will be out. If she’s formally impeached, Temer will likely serve out the rest of that term. He has been sharply criticized for appointing a Cabinet of all white men in a country where more than 50 percent of the population is non-white.
Meanwhile, Brazilian protesters at the Olympic games in Rio have been making their opinions known on the matter.
Not surprisingly transportation costs were higher, with visitors arriving for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but on average, residential electricity tariffs declined 3% from June and were down 5.8% form the year-ago period.
Echoing Rousseff’s criticism of the trial, he added that “to many Brazilians and observers the controversial impeachment process more closely resembles a coup d’état”. She has argued that other former presidents did similar things in their handling of the federal budget.
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Rousseff’s allies in the Workers’ Party point out that numerous lawmakers accusing her are implicated in corruption cases arguably far more serious than accounting tricks.
