On Sunday, August 28, a little calmer, she resorted to her lawyer, José Eduardo Cardozo, and her advisor, Sandra Brandão, who knows her administration’s figures thoroughly, to discuss the last adjustments to her speech – Rousseff says that it will be her most hard moment since she was suspended from office. She is expected to speak for about a half hour.
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Ms. Rousseff gave a good speech, telling her supporters what they wanted to hear and placing her situation in Brazil’s historical context, but it is too late to change Senators’ minds, said Pedro Fassoni Arruda, a political scientist and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sã o Paulo. She says the money had no impact on overall deficit levels and was paid back in full the following year.
For Rousseff to be removed, at least 54 of the 81 senators must vote in favor.
President Dilma Rousseff faced the Brazilian Senate Monday to answer questions during her impeachment trial.
Rousseff used her 45-minute speech to outline her personal and political history, showing how she rose from the victim of torture under Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1960s to a woman who twice won the presidential election. However, the interim minister said that the agencies are vacant spaces.
“Vote against impeachment, vote for democracy do not accept a coup”, Rousseff said.
Rousseff’s exit would end more than 13 years of government by the Workers Party, which were marked by the rise of Brazil as a global economic power under former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. Rousseff will face Congress on Monday as her impeachment process enters its final stages.
As she arrived smiling at the Senate, supporters chanted: “Dilma, warrior of the Brazilian homeland!”
The impeachment case rests on narrow charges that Rousseff took unauthorised state loans to bridge budget shortfalls during her 2014 election to a second term.
She said he tried to blackmail her into providing votes from her Workers’ Party to quash an ethics inquiry into him. Her appearance comes a day or two before the Senate votes on whether to oust her from the presidency.
After four days of intense fighting in Brazil’s capital over the charges facing Rousseff, she got her turn on the stage to defend herself.
“I can’t help but taste the bitterness of injustice” of this process, she said.
Rousseff said it was “an irony of history” that she would be judged for crimes she did not commit, by people who were accused of serious crimes.
Earlier, Rousseff had sharp words for her vice president, Michel Temer, who took over when she was impeached and suspended and will finish her term if the Senate permanently removes her.
Noting that she was re-elected in 2014 by 54 million Brazilians, Ms Rousseff acknowledged she has made mistakes.
The chamber will vote later this week on the guilt or innocence of Ms Rousseff.
Before Rousseff spoke, Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who is presiding over the trial, warned senators and spectators to remain silent. Rousseff has denied wrongdoing.
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It’s a jarring return to reality for the South American nation, with the final vote in the drama following the celebrations that came with Rio de Janeiro hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics. She claims that these elites are now trying to remove her from power based on unfair allegations.
