Temer, who has served as acting president since May, is hardly more popular than Rousseff.
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Rousseff and her allies have repeatedly tried to challenge the impeachment process in court, saying the charges against her of using accounting tricks to mask a budget deficit aren’t grounds for her ouster.
The trial of the country’s first female president accused of breaking the budget law opened in Brazil’s capital on Thursday and is broadcast by major TV channels, radio stations and Internet portals.
However, the Supreme Court chief justice Ricardo Lewandowski disqualified Oliveira as a witness after Rousseff’s defense team argued the federal prosecutor attended anti-Rousseff protests. Opponents say Rousseff’s budget maneuvers aggravated the crisis in Latin America’s largest economy.
Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff reads a letter to the country in Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, August 16, 2016. But just days after the end of the Games, Brazil will be forced to confront the fact that Rousseff is likely to be the second government executive official to be impeached since the military dictatorship ended in 1985 (former President Fernando Collor de Mello was impeached in 1992).
A two-thirds majority, 54 out of 81 senators, is needed to fully remove her from office. In her case, investigators are looking at whether she used embezzled funds from Petrobras as campaign contributions.
Temer also denies that he is anxious: “Now we wait, calmly”, he said.
Financial markets have rallied at the prospect of an impeachment, but Brazil’s financial and political woes are far from over.
If confirmed as president, Temer would need to curb Brazil’s deficit and put the economy back on track to emerge from the worst recession in decades. Coalition members in Congress have already started to butt heads over measures that would cut into wages of civil servants and judiciary workers. Rousseff is expected to give her speech on August 29.
“The real problem of Temer is his own support base”, said Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian research group and business school.
Like many in the Senate and the lower chamber, Hoffman is being investigated for corruption. But before new elections could occur, both Rousseff and Temer would have to resign or be removed from office. Speaking to workers in the city of Niteroi, Lula said Rousseff may have committed policy errors but she was an honest politician who had done nothing to warrant her removal. “To stop this from happening again, I must go to the Senate to defend Brazil’s democracy, the political views that I advocate and the legitimate rights of the Brazilian people”, she said.
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Her mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will stand by her side in a show of solidarity, according to Rui Falcao, the leader of their Workers’ Party. He is then expected to address the nation before heading to the summit of the G20 group of leading economies in China on September 4-5.
