Brazil’s Senate voted early on Wednesday to indict President Dilma Rousseff on charges of breaking budget laws and put her on trial in an impeachment process that has stalled Brazilian politics since January.
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Rousseff is accused of pedaladas fiscais, or moving money from state-controlled banks to pay for popular social programs, starting in 2013 – ostensibly to bolster her 2014 reelection bid, which Rousseff won in a close race.
In the final trial, Russeff’s opposition needs a two-thirds majority, or 54 votes, in the Senate to impeach her.
The vote in favor of trying Rousseff, who was suspended from the presidency in May, was 59 in favor, 21 against. If Rousseff is removed from office, it would end 13 years of leftist rule in Brazil. She has argued that other former presidents did similar things in their handling of the federal budget.
The political crisis in Brazil has been compounded by a severe economic downturn.
Senate speaker, Renan Calheiros, mirrored his tone: “I want to emphasize the gravity of the decision that we will soon take”, he said.
As the world focused on the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, senators in the capital city of Brasilia moved forward with their efforts to permanently remove Rousseff, who was suspended in May.
“The cards are marked in this game”, said Worker’s Party Sen.
Temer has been in office since May, when Rousseff was suspended by the Senate.
Workers Party Senator, Jorge Viana, said during a parole in Wednesday’s session that there is not such trial. As Slate’s Franklin Foerput it in a long article on Brazil yesterday: “Dilma’s impeachment was a farce, if only for the fact that her accusers have benefited from graft on a mind-bending scale and ginned up the spectacle to distract from their own misdeeds”.
Her allies in the Workers’ Party have pointed out that numerous members of the Brazilian congress who have accused her are implicated in corruption cases themselves.
Temer, who was Rousseff’s vice president-turned-nemesis, took over after Rousseff’s May impeachment.
Temer-who chose a Cabinet of “all rich, white males”-is embroiled in corruption scandals and is very unpopular but is “business-friendly”, according to Reuters”.
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For more context on the Rousseff trial, CCTV America’s Mike Walter spoke to Paulo Sotero, a longtime Brazilian journalist and director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
