Fighting to save her job, suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has told senators the allegations against her have no merit and that history would judge the country if she is removed from office. The closest she got to admitting to any mistakes was when she said: “Like everyone, I have my flaws, and I make mistakes”.
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Many political observers have noted that Rousseff has never been accused of corruption, unlike numerous lawmakers with the power to vote whether to impeach her or not.
After riding the commodities boom in her first term, Rousseff saw her popularity dwindle to single figures this year amid a deep recession that many Brazilians blame on her government’s interventionist policies and a huge corruption scandal involving Petrobras under the Workers Party government.
In her speech, Rousseff depicted the impeachment process as an act of revenge by the former head of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, and other politicians for her allowing the blockbuster Operation Car Wash anticorruption investigation to go forward.
Brazil’s first female president is a former guerrilla fighter who was jailed and tortured during the country’s dictatorship, and Rousseff drew a connection between her past and the situation today.
When Dilma Rousseff took the Senate’s podium to deliver her speech, nobody actually believed that her words could swing votes to block her definitive removal from the presidency.
She is accused of illegally covering up budget holes by taking unauthorised state loans, but says the charges are trumped up in what amounts to a coup d’etat. But she has been charged on the sidelines of the impeachment process with obstructing a sweeping investigation into bribery and political kickbacks at state-run oil company Petrobras, Brazil’s biggest-ever scandal.
Should she be impeached and her ruling Workers’ Party ousted, which most observers say is likely, interim President Michel Temer of the conservative PMDB party will see her term through 2018.
Rousseff is expected to learn her fate by Wednesday this week.
Two Brazilian social groups called for protests and gathered in the city’s main avenue with signs against Michel Temer, Rousseff’s vice president who has been the acting leader since she was suspended in May pending the impeachment trial.
Her vice president turned arch enemy will serve out Ms Rousseff’s term if she is removed.
“They want to overthrow a president re-elected by 54 million Brazilians and get rid of the Workers Party that has protected the poor”, said Thiago Fagundes, a 27-year-old graphic artist and Rousseff supporter in Brasilia.
“I ask that you be just with an honest president”, she said during her initial address, her voice cracking with emotion.
Criticised for lacking a popular touch or appetite for backroom politicking, Rousseff has barely double digit approval ratings.
Police in Sao Paulo have fired tear gas against people demonstrating in support of President Dilma Rousseff. “I fight for democracy, for truth and justice, for the people of my country”.
He plans to leave Tuesday or Wednesday on his first official foreign trip, a G20 summit in China, where officials say he will push to restore the tattered reputation of Brazil’s economy.
The drama has consumed Brazil, with the proceedings continuing even during the August 5-21 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
She cut her political teeth as a Marxist militant opposed to Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship.
Rousseff is accused of manipulating government budgets to mask a looming deficit ahead of her 2014 reelection.
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Brazil’s Rousseff says “future of Brazil at stake” in Senate trial was posted in World of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 30, 2016 and was last updated on August 30, 2016.
