People walk next to an official photography of Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff, with a text written in Portuguese that reads “Dilma our president”, at a camp in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2016.
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Rousseff therefore faces criticism for hiding the scope of the government’s deficit problem and announcing an expansion of social programmes that was not economically feasible, due to a lack of funds.
(AP Photo/Leo Correa). The Brazilian national flag waves next to the wall that will separate the supporters of the Suspended Brazilian President Dilma from their opponents, in front of the National Congress building in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 28.
The protesters said they plan to rally near the Senate on Monday morning when Rousseff comes to speak in her defense.
Fighting to save her job, suspended President Dilma Rousseff addresses the Senate on Monday in a showdown pitting accusations that the she hurt Brazil’s economy with budget manipulations against her argument that she did nothing wrong and is being targeted by corrupt lawmakers.
She’s speaking at her own impeachment trial, saying: “I know I will be judged, but my conscience is clear”.
The impeachment trial will now columinate in an impeachment vote the coming week, and it will take a two-thirds majority, i.e. 54 of the 81 senators to formally remove Rousseff from the post of President.
Even senators not convinced the accounting charges brought against Rousseff warrant her impeachment have made a decision to vote against her because they see her return to the presidency prolonging Brazil’s political crisis. She says that at every moment she has followed the constitution and done what was best for the country.
“She’s not trying to change her fate, I think – it’s pretty much sealed from everything that we understand”.
It’s the final phase of a long process that could potentially remove her from office, as NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro reports from Rio de Janeiro.
Her Workers’ Party has essentially abandoned her, not even backing her proposal for new presidential elections if the impeachment was to be blocked. The process has taken its time, with congressional debates starting back in December and Rousseff being suspended by the Senate by a vote of 55 to 22 on May 12 after a marathon 21 hour session. “In my view, it just needs to be signed and then Temer will be president”, said a street vendor outside Congress, referring to Michel Temer, Brazil’s interim leader. If Rousseff is permanently removed, Temer will serve the rest of her term, which goes through 2018.
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Rousseff is on trial for breaking fiscal rules in her management of the federal budget.
