People walk next to an official photo of Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff, at a camp in support of Rousseff, in Brasilia, Brazil, August 28, 2016.
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Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is telling senators that she is being unjustly accused of breaking fiscal rules in her management of the federal budget.
For some context, pollster Ipsos said in a report in April that Rousseff’s approval rating was around 15%, while former US President Richard Nixon’s approval rating was 25% before he resigned and former US President Bill Clinton’s approval rating was 65% before his impeachment.
Vice-President Michel Temer took over in May. “Can a country involved in such a case not punish the related personnel?” she added. He has already served as acting president since her suspension in May and moved quickly to shift Brazil away from the left, saying the country needs reform to rebuild its giant, crumbling economy.
Rousseff’s rivals blame her for economic chaos and are out to crush her Workers’ Party (PT).
Fighting to save her job, suspended President Dilma Rousseff addresses the Senate on Monday 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.
Rousseff has sworn to resist what she calls a coup.
On Friday, Rousseff’s defense called experts to testify and answer questions, a day after the prosecution dominated Thursday’s session.
Brazilian magazine Exame reported that Lula travelled to Brasilia on Friday to persuade senators to vote against her impeachment. “I think it’s possible to reverse the process because there are senators who even though they’ve shown they favor impeachment have said they could change their minds”, she said.
In a public letter this month, Rousseff admitted mistakes and promised a plebiscite to hold new elections if she survives the vote.
The same argument was delivered Friday by a first batch of witnesses testifying on Rousseff’s behalf who said that such budget maneuvers have always been common practice, and that Brazil’s economic decline was entirely unrelated.
Rousseff has lost her base of support in Congress and can no longer run the country effectively, he said.
Separately, Brazil’s Federal Police confirmed Friday that Rousseff’s predecessor and political mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been charged with accepting gifts from construction company OAS, one of the numerous firms that took part in a bribes-for-inflated-contracts scheme that cost Petrobras an estimated $2 billion.
Inside the chamber, many senators can barely disguise their eagerness to finish Rousseff off.
Brazilians march in Rio de Janeiro calling for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, including a woman with a sign that says “Dilma Out” in Portuguese.
Her troubles began when Brazil’s once booming economy began to crash – as a result of a fall in global commodity prices that progressively decimated the national economy throughout her tenure.
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However, his center-right coalition and choice of market-friendly ministers have raised expectations that he can get the economy back on track.
