(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)The Associated PressBrazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff speaks at her impeachment trial, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Aug. 29, 2016.
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Numerous 81 senators signed up to speak Tuesday afternoon on the fifth day of her impeachment trial, prompting Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski to announce that they would go as long as it took for everyone to be heard.
Brasilia-Fighting to save her job, suspended President Dilma Rousseff addresses the Senate 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.
If the Senate convicts Rousseff, as expected, her Vice President Michel Temer will be sworn in to serve the rest of her term through 2018.Temer, who has been interim president since Congress opened impeachment proceedings in mid-May, has vowed to impose austerity measures to plug a growing fiscal deficit that cost Brazil its investment-grade credit rating a year ago. She says she broke no laws and notes that previous presidents used similar accounting measures.
Numerous 81 senators signed up to speak, prompting Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski to announce that the vote could not happen Tuesday as originally planned. He’s scheduled to present a summary of the six-day trial before voting begins.
Several senators who had not previously declared their votes, including two from the northern state of Maranhao, shifted decisively against Rousseff on Tuesday, according to four sources familiar with their deliberations.
In an emotional speech from the Senate podium, Rousseff denied any wrongdoing and compared the trial to her persecution during Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, when she was a member of a leftist guerrilla group.
If sworn in Wednesday, Temer is expected to leave for China to represent Brazil at the G20 worldwide summit, sources close to him said. Senator Ana Amelia de Lemos said the president’s budget policies were on trial, not her life story.
“I know I will be judged, but my conscience is clear”, she said during remarks to senators Monday.
Still, there are signs that Brazil’s economy is improving.
However, huge anti-Rousseff street demonstrations over the past year have reflected nationwide anger at her management of a country suffering double-digit unemployment and inflation.
“This is a farce”, he said in a speech, “We should ask her forgiveness if she is convicted”, he added.
The defense attorney, former Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo, insisted that “a coup will have been executed” if Rousseff is impeached and blamed “a political and economic elite”.
Allies of Rousseff have signaled that if she is removed from office, they will take the case to the Supreme Court.
On Monday, she argued before senators that she was forced to make tough choices on the budget in the face of declining revenues and a refusal by opponents in Congress to work with her.
Rousseff was annoying interim President Michel Temer and called him “usurper”.
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His government also risks entanglement in a sweeping investigation of kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras that already has ensnared dozens of politicians in Rousseff’s coalition.
