Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff waves goodbye after her impeachment trial at the Federal Senate in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Aug. 29, 2016.
Advertisement
Although she spoke mostly in a measured tone, her voice cracked and she appeared close to tears while recalling her suffering as a young leftist guerrilla and in battling cancer.
Instead, Ms Rousseff appeared yesterday to want to give a defence of her character and record as president.
Nearby, a smaller group of a few dozen pro-impeachment demonstrators gathered at another point near the Senate, kept apart by police from the Rousseff supporters. The Senate forced her to temporarily step down in May when it made a decision to try her on charges of using accounting tricks to mask a budget deficit.
Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff, twice elected president as the candidate of a left-leaning alliance led by the Workers’ Party (PT), will undergo one of the most critical moments of her political career.
She called that nonsense, contending she broke no laws and noting previous presidents used similar accounting measures.
She said the impeachment process had exacerbated the recession in Latin America’s largest economy, flipping the blame on the opposition, which often argues she has to be removed for the financial climate to improve.
“I can’t help but taste the bitterness of injustice”, she told members of the Senate, before thanking those among them who defended her and voted against the impeachment trial.
“I come to look their excellencies straight in the eyes and say with all the serenity of someone who had nothing to answer for, that I did not commit any crimes involving my responsibilities”, she said. Her vice president turned arch enemy will serve out Rousseff’s term if she is removed.
Closing arguments were to begin after her testimony, followed by voting, possibly extending into Wednesday.
According to local newspapers, 52 senators have said they will vote to have Rousseff impeached once the trial is over.
Many political observers have noted that Rousseff has never been accused of corruption, unlike many lawmakers with the power to vote whether to impeach her or not.
She added that she was determined to continue her fight against the attacks against her, which she said amounted to a “coup”. Their response was tepid.
If the suspended president is removed from office, her former vice president, Michel Temer, who has been acting president in her stead since May 12, will complete the presidential mandate lasting until January 1, 2019, to which Rousseff was elected. The Cabinet that Temer put in place has been roundly criticized for its lack of diversity, and three of his ministers were forced to step down within a month of taking office because of corruption allegations.
Temer, who stayed out of sight Monday, issued a statement calling “lies” numerous claims made about him over the last several months. “These and other lies were attributed in an irresponsible and frivolous way to the interim government”, the statement reads.
“Don’t expect from me the obliging silence of cowards”, she said.
“This is the second trial I have suffered in which democracy has sat with me in the dock”, she said, choking back tears as she recalled facing death when she was tortured day after day in detention.
She also claimed that, if she were to be ousted, the senators would be implementing an “indirect election” over the heads of Brazil’s 110 million voters.
Rousseff asserted she paid a price for refusing to quash a wide-ranging police investigation into the state oil company Petrobras, saying corrupt lawmakers conspired to oust her to derail the investigation into billions in kickbacks at the oil giant.
“I did not commit the crimes that I am arbitrarily and unjustly accused of”.
Advertisement
He faces harsh questioning over his legitimacy as an unelected president and was loudly booed at the recent Olympic opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.
