A Brazilian congressional committee on Monday recommended impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, setting the stage for a crucial vote in the lower house to decide whether she should face trial.
The committee voted 38 to 27 in favor of Rousseff’s ouster.
Both sides yelled slogans and waved placards as the vote was completed after hours of bad-tempered debate that often descended into shouting matches, reflecting Brazil’s increasingly bitter divisions.
Photo: AP
Rousseff is accused of fiddling accounts to mask the dire state of the government budget during her 2014 re-election.
The committee’s decision is non-binding, but symbolically important as a preview of the decisive battle in the full lower chamber expected on Sunday or the following Monday.
“It was a victory for the Brazilian people,” opposition deputy Jovair Arantes said, predicting the result would carry with “strong” pro-impeachment momentum into the full chamber’s vote.
In the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, a two-thirds majority would send Rousseff’s case to the Brazilian Senate, which would then have the power to put her on trial and ultimately drive her from office. Anything less would torpedo the procedure.
Rousseff is fighting desperately to secure enough votes against impeachment or persuade deputies to abstain.
The latest survey of the 513 lower house deputies by the Estadao daily on Monday showed 298 in favor — still short of the 342 needed to carry the motion — with 119 opposed and 96 undecided.
Pro-government deputy Silvio Costa said he was confident.
“The opposition is very arrogant” after the committee victory, he said.
With Latin America’s biggest country gripped by recession, political paralysis and a vast corruption scandal, passions on both sides are intense.
A barricade was erected along the Esplanade of Ministries in the capital, Brasilia, to separate opposing protesters that police expect could number as many as 300,000 during the lower house vote.
If the case is taken up by the Senate after being confirmed by the lower house, Rousseff would have to step down for up to 180 days while a trial is held. Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer, who has gone over to the opposition, would take the reins.
Temer would also remain president if a two-thirds majority in the Senate votes to depose Rousseff.
Some in the opposition have declared Rousseff politically dead ever since Temer’s PMDB party, the largest in the nation, quit her ruling coalition and joined the pro-impeachment ranks last month.
However, Rousseff, who was tortured under Brazil’s military dictatorship, has fought back, helped by ally and former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is overseeing frantic negotiations to build an impeachment-proof coalition.
Lula, addressing thousands of supporters on Monday evening in Rio, said “putschists” were trying to oust a freely elected president.
“I would never have thought that my generation would see putschists trying to overthrow a democratically elected president,” said Lula, who ruled from 2003 to 2011.
He specifically named Temer and Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha.
Rousseff has rock-bottom popularity ratings, but as the moment of truth approaches, it appears that Brazilians are not much keener on her would-be replacement Temer.
A poll by the Datafolha institute on Saturday showed that 61 percent support impeachment, down from 68 percent in mid-March. However, 58 percent also said they would like to see Temer impeached.
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