The Nation Newspaper

Tag: President Dilma Rousseff.

  • Brazil’s Senate impeaches President Rousseff

    Brazil’s Senate impeaches President Rousseff

    Brazil’s Senate overwhelmingly in the final phase of her impeachment trial voted on Wednesday to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office on charges of breaking budget laws.

    A report from the Senate said the 61-20 vote in the upper house of Congress brings to an end 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers’ Party.

    This was well clear of the 54 votes needed for a two-thirds majority.

    The report added that the interim President, Michel Temer of the centre-right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, would now take over country’s the leadership until its next presidential election in 2018.

    Rousseff, who came to power in 2011 and was the country’s first female president, stood accused of manipulating state budgets as she ran for re-election in 2014.

    She was also accused of improperly granting loans to the Federal Government from state-owned banks.

    However, she denied any wrongdoing and has called her trial a right-wing “coup’’.

    The impeachment proceedings — the first in Brazil in more than two decades — were opened in December.

    Rousseff was then suspended from office in May after the lower house of Congress voted to impeach her.

     

  • Rousseff impeachment trial gets final go-ahead

    Rousseff impeachment trial gets final go-ahead

    Brazil’s Senate gave the final approval for an impeachment trial against suspended President Dilma Rousseff on Wednesday, bringing closer her possible dismissal on charges of manipulating government accounts.

    After a marathon session lasting nearly 17 hours, the motion was carried with 59 votes in favour and 21 against.

    The lawmakers were voting after a Senate special commission last week also gave the green light for a trial.

    Deliberations on Rousseff’s fate are due to begin between Aug. 25 and 29 after the end of the Rio Olympics with a vote taking place by Sept. 2.

    A two-thirds majority is then needed in the final vote to impeach her.

    Rousseff was suspended from office on May 12, charged with manipulating government accounts to obscure the country’s economic situation during her 2014 re-election campaign.

    She rejects that charge and has called the suspension a “coup.”

    Michel Temer, the country’s vice president, was made interim president for 180 days after Rouseff’s suspension in May.

    He was booed by locals during the Olympics opening ceremony in Maracana stadium.

    If Rousseff is dismissed next month, Temer could stay in office until elections scheduled for 2018.

  • Brazil’s Senate commission vote on president’s impeachment

    Brazil’s Senate commission vote on president’s impeachment

    The Brazilian Senate’s Special Commission on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, has approved its first meeting that it would vote on May 6 on whether the process should continue or not.

    If the commission votes and makes its recommendation, a full Senate vote could take place on May 11, the Commission’s Rapporteur, Antonio Anastasia said.

    Anastasia is a senator from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).

    Under the Brazilian law, if a majority of senators, or 41 out of 81 vote in favour of the impeachment, Rousseff will be removed from office for 180 days as a full impeachment trial goes ahead, and Vice President Michel Temer would become the interim president.

    A final impeachment vote would require a two-third majority to oust her.

    On the same day, representatives from Brazil’s largest labour unions, urged Rousseff to take active measures to shore up her support and mobilise people against “the coup”.

    Union leaders sent her a package of suggestions, including the expropriation of lands to implement agricultural reform, the removal of law bills currently being viewed by Congress, which might harm workers’ rights, among others.

    They also asked that representatives of labour unions be given government positions, currently left vacant after former allies of Rousseff’s Workers’ Party abandoned her amid her impeachment fight.

    The letter also invited Rousseff to participate in an event on May 1 in Sao Paulo, which will see a massive turnout against her impeachment and in defence of workers’ rights.

    Labour unions and their members have been stalwart defenders of Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom they see as champions of the Brazilian working classes.

  • Brazil: Court upholds presidential impeachment

    Brazil: Court upholds presidential impeachment

    Brazil’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the government to stop an impeachment vote set for Sunday in the lower house of parliament against President Dilma Rousseff, a report said.

     

    Attorney General, Jose Cardozo, had filed the application emphasising that it sought fair treatment of Rousseff, who had been under pressure to resign for months.

     

    The president has been accused of hiding the extent of the budget deficit during her re-election campaign at the end of 2014.

     

    But a majority of the Supreme Court justices voted early on Friday against the government’s emergency petition, arguing that Rousseff had had adequate opportunity to mount a defence.

     

    If two-thirds of the lower house of parliament vote for the process to go forward, and that vote is followed by a simple majority in the Senate, Rousseff would be suspended for 180 days.

     

    That could mean she will not be able to open the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 5.

     

    During her suspension, the charges against her would be legally examined, and Vice President Michel Temer would serve as president.

     

    In October, the Senate could vote to dismiss her by a two-thirds majority and, if that happens, Temer would remain president until the end of 2018.

     

    Temer’s party has joined four other parties in deciding to break ties with Rousseff, but he remains vice president.

     

    The original nine-party coalition has shrunk so drastically that the necessary two-thirds against it, or 342 of the 513 votes, could be achieved on Sunday.

     

    However, there is traditionally very little faction discipline, and the government is trying to win over individual deputies of the opposition.

     

    “I’m not trying to gain time, I am just fighting for what I consider to be legal,” Cardozo said in his request before the Supreme Court.

     

    Another round of demonstrations by opponents and supporters of Rousseff are expected to take place in Brazil on Sunday.

     

  • Brazil: Rousseff faces impeachment threat

    Brazil: Rousseff faces impeachment threat

    Members of the congressional committee in Brazil’s lower house have voted in support of impeaching President Dilma Rousseff.

    Majority of the 65-member special committee voted in favor of the impeachment: 38 lawmakers voted yes, while 27 voted on Monday.

    Lawmakers accuse Rousseff of hiding a budgetary deficit to win re-election in 2014. Her presidency has been rocked by a massive corruption scandal, accusations of cronyism and a deepening recession.

    According to the brazil constitution, if  impeachment is approved by at least two-thirds of the 513 members of the lower house, it will then be sent to the Senate, where the president of the Supreme Court will oversee the process.

    Rousseff has claimed that the impeachment process against her is a coup by the president of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha.

    However, the impeachment is not approved in the lower house, the process is nullified.

    If she is impeached, Vice President Michel Temer would assume the presidency.