Rousseff vacated the presidential offices after the Senate’s decision in May but was allowed to remain in the presidential residence in Brasilia.
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The impeachment trial is the final step in a leadership fight that has all but paralyzed Congress since a measure to impeach her was introduced in the lower chamber late a year ago.
“On what moral ground is this Senate able to judge President Dilma?” said Gleisi Hoffmann, a Workers’ Party representative from Paraná state, drawing shouts from the chamber and prompting Lewandowski to temporarily suspend the hearing. She is accused of breaking fiscal laws, in managing the federal budget as her government ran out of resources.
Meanwhile, those leading the impeachment campaign, including former lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha and the interim president Michel Temer are accused of bribery and illegal campaign contributions.
“I wasn’t hired by any particular party to bring this lawsuit”, she said, noting that one of the co-authors of the suit came from Rousseff’s own Workers’ Party. Opposition parties say that was to boost public spending and shore up support while masking the depths of deficits.
Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff speaks during a rally in support of democracy and against the coup, in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016.
Brazil’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski smiles during the impeachment trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.
Rousseff has never been personally implicated, but her detractors say she must have known what was happening and bears responsibility.
Rousseff alleges that something more nefarious is at play: a bloodless “coup” by corrupt legislators who want to oust her so they can water down a wide-ranging investigation into billions of dollars in kickbacks at the state oil company, Petrobras. It will require 54 votes in favor, or two-thirds of 81 senators.
The impeachment trial against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff began Thursday with the prosecution’s main witness disqualified.
The warm vibe of the Rio Olympic Games faded and tension returned as the emotionally-charged affair neared its climax, threatening to end 13 years of leftist rule in Latin America’s biggest economy. If convicted, Rousseff will likely appeal to the country’s highest court.
Her predecessor and mentor, Workers’ Party founder Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left office with sky-high ratings in 2010 thanks to an economic boom that he used for social programs lifting tens of millions of Brazilians from poverty. But if it removes her permanently, then Temer will become the full-fledged president until the next election in 2018.
She insists that numerous lawmakers who pushed for her impeachment want revenge because they were implicated in the investigation, notably Eduardo Cunha, who resigned as speaker of the lower house of Congress amid the scandal.
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Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff reads a letter to the country in Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, August 16, 2016. But before new elections could occur, both Rousseff and Temer would have to resign or be removed from office.
