The Senate has 180 days to conduct its trial, chaired by the president of the Supreme Court. The impeachment process moved a step closer Thursday as the lower house established a special commission on the matter. Brazil’s lower house of Congress launched impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff yesterday by approving a committee of 65 members that will study whether there are grounds to remove her for manipulating government accounts.
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Banco Bradesco (BBD) stock is advancing 14.55% to $7.48 in early-afternoon trading on Thursday, as the real rallies on optimism that Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, who has been contending with the country’s worst recession in a century, will be ousted. The corruption probe, however, has weakened Lula’s sway in Congress and there are growing signs that Rousseff’s main coalition partner is ready to abandon the unpopular government.
The tapes reportedly show the president acknowledging the appointment would help Lula avoid prosecution. Brazil’s powerful industry lobby, the CNI, said the political crisis was having “catastrophic” consequences for businesses and called on the country’s politicians to overcome their differences to restore confidence.
During the swearing-in ceremony, President Rousseff strongly criticised the release on Wednesday of a taped telephone conversation between her and Lula that was made public by another federal judge, calling it illegal and anti-democratic.
“Shaking Brazilian society on the base of untruths, shady maneuvers, and much-criticized practices violates Constitutional guarantees and creates very serious precedents”, Rousseff said. The president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing as does her predecessor and mentor, Inácio Lula da Silva, a once wildly popular president who governed Brazil from 2003-2011.
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The committee will hear Rousseff’s defense against accusations that she illegally tampered with the federal budget to mask the government’s widening fiscal deficit. A PMDB convention on Saturday banned its members from taking new posts in her government.
