Temer would take over as acting president during her Senate trial and permanently take the country’s reins if the opposition wins a final vote with a two-thirds majority.
Advertisement
Rousseff’s backers also point out that Temer could face impeachment himself because he backed her policies as vice president, while his PMDB party’s other heavyweights, Cunha and Calheiros, also face corruption allegations.
More than half the lawmakers who decided her fate on Sunday are under investigation for graft, fraud or electoral crimes, according to Congresso em Foco, a prominent watchdog in Brasilia. The Senate will then have six months to rule whether to permanently remove Rousseff from office, in which case Temer would serve out her term though its 2018 conclusion.
The defiant comments came at a Monday news conference at the presidential palace, which was Rousseff’s first public appearance since the Chamber of Deputies voted 367-137 the previous night to send the impeachment proceedings to the Senate for a possible trial of Brazil’s first female president.
A majority vote in the Senate which will now determine whether Ms Rousseff is suspended and put on trial, paving the way for the Vice President to take control.
Financial markets have been betting heavily on Rousseff’s exit and the advent of a more business-friendly government to kickstart Brazil’s economy.
“They’ve taken an attitude with me that they wouldn’t take with a man”, she said, adding, “I profoundly lament the level of prejudice against women”.
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Brazil is in a “huge mess” and hasn’t even begun a transition process yet. Rousseff stands accused of a budgetary sleight of hand employed by many elected officials in Brazil in order to boost her re-election campaign in 2014: borrowing money from state lenders and delaying repayment in order to artificially lower the budget deficit.
Cheering and confetti burst from Opposition ranks at the 342nd vote, countered by jeering from Rousseff allies – a snapshot of the divisive mood consuming Brazil just four months before Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympics. Her popularity has plunged in step with the economy, and opinion polls suggest most Brazilians support her ouster, though many have reservations about those in line to replace her. In a recent plea bargain by a key senator, Temer was accused of supporting one of the company’s former directors involved in overpricing contracts for bribes.
Advertisement
With the country’s leadership besmirched by corruption, calls for general elections have been growing. “After the fourth, we’ll have to have a new arrangement of the Federal Government”, she said. “We lost because the coup-mongers were stronger”.
