Beleaguered Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is to travel to New York in a bid to rally international support against her impeachment, leaving behind a Cabinet paralyzed by political crisis as another minister defected on Wednesday.
Rousseff aides said the leftist leader is to attend a UN event today in New York where she is expected to denounce as illegal the attempt to impeach her, a process that could see her forced from office within weeks in a process she calls a “coup d’etat without weapons.”
Brazilian Minister for Energy Eduardo Braga said he was quitting her government following orders from his centrist Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) party, Rousseff’s main coalition partner until it abandoned her last month to back her ouster.
Rousseff’s impeachment would end 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers’ Party.
Nine ministers in Rousseff’s 31-member Cabinet have now resigned, leaving important portfolios without politically appointed heads, including the tourism and sports ministries only four months before Brazil hosts the Olympic Games.
Rousseff might not even be president by the time the event starts.
Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer, who would take over if Rousseff is impeached, met with close advisers in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to study plans for a new government that, aides said, would move quickly to restore economic confidence and growth.
Two presidential aides said Rousseff would use her visit to New York to defend herself in interviews with international media.
Rousseff said the accounting manipulation her administration used, putting off the transfer of funds to state banks, was a practice employed by previous governments.
Her opponents say it allowed her to unfairly expand public spending and boost her re-election campaign in 2014.
The Rousseff government’s legal appeals for injunctions to stop the impeachment process have been rejected by the Brazilian Supreme Court.
Rousseff on Tuesday said the impeachment process was started by lower chamber Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who is charged with corruption and money laundering, out of revenge for her government not shielding him from ethics committee hearings.
She accused Temer, leader of the PMDB party, of plotting against her.
During her trip to New York, Temer is to temporarily assume the presidency, an irony not lost on his aides.
“This is a rather unusual coup,” said Temer’s spokesman Marcio de Freitas. “She is going to the UN to denounce a coup, but handing over power during her trip to the man she says is trying to overthrow her.”
The longest serving justice on the Brazilian Supreme Court weighed in on the debate on Wednesday, telling reporters the motion to impeach Rousseff was not a coup, despite her claim.
“This is totally mistaken. [Brazilian] Congress and the Supreme Court have made it quite clear the impeachment process has complied with the constitution up to now,” Justice Celso de Mello said.
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