Rousseff's supporters take to the streets to protest impeachment vote

Supporters of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Wednesday night protested her impeachment her by setting fires, damaging property and clashing with police in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paolo.

Lawmakers voted 61-20 Wednesday to remove Rousseff from office, finding her guilty of breaking budgetary laws in an impeachment trial. 

Michel Temer, Rousseff's former vice president who has been serving as interim president since her suspension in May, will assume the office of president and serve out the remainder of her term. Temer, a leader of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, was sworn in Wednesday afternoon.

Police lined the streets to curb the often violent demonstrations, which saw property vandalized and police vehicles damaged. Police fired tear gas at some supporters of the former leader in an attempt to quell the protests.

Temer, 75, inherits a tattered economy along with the keys to the presidential palace in Brasilia, the nation's capital.

 

In an attempt to bring calm to the streets and reassure ordinary Brazilians, Temer said: "This is a moment of hope, to rebuild trust in Brazil. Uncertainty has come to an end. It's time to unify the country."

The new President met with his Cabinet and promised to tackle unemployment.

"I am not saying it is an easy task, since we have almost 12 million people unemployed in this country," he said, according to a CNN translation. "It's a scary number, and there is nothing less dignified than unemployment."

A general election is scheduled for 2018.

Wednesday's vote marked the culmination of a contentious impeachment process that has dragged on for months. It's a political crisis that ordinary Brazilians could do well without as the country, which just hosted the Summer Olympics in Rio, is trying to pull itself out of recession.

While Brazil's first female president is out of a job, but not barred from the ballot if she wants to run again -- a motion to bar her from holding any public office for the next eight years failed.

Rousseff, 68, a former Marxist guerrilla, said earlier this week that she had committed no crime and said she was proud she'd been "faithful to my commitment to the nation."

Sen. Lindbergh Farias of the Workers' Party made an impassioned plea against Rousseff's impeachment.

"This is a farce. This is a pretext. This is absolutely irrelevant. There are two types of senators, the one that know there was no crime of responsibility and vote against the impeachment and those that know there was no crime of responsibility and vote in favor," he said, shouting from the Senate floor.

Sen. Ronaldo Caiado of the Democrats argued that Rousseff should be ousted, saying that lawmakers weren't the ones behind the impeachment process.

"It began because 90% of the population has said loudly, no more (Workers' Party)," he said.

The heir to former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Rousseff was re-elected by a narrow margin in 2014, but a recession and a cross-party corruption scandal put an end to any political goodwill she might have earned, eventually leading to her ouster.

A statement from the spokesman for Ban Ki-moon said the U.N. Secretary-General had "taken note" of the impeachment process and Temer's swearing in.

"The Secretary-General extends his best wishes to President Temer as he begins his tenure," the statement said. "He trusts that under President Temer's leadership, Brazil and the United Nations will continue their traditional close partnership."

 

 (CNN)

 

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff impeached by Senate

Brazil's Senate has voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office for manipulating the budget.

It puts an end to 13 years in power of her left-wing Workers' Party. Ms Rousseff denies the charges.

Sixty-one senators voted in favour of her impeachment and 20 against, meeting the two-thirds majority needed to remove her from the presidency.

Acting President Michel Temer will serve out Ms Rousseff's term, which ends on 1 January 2019.

Mr Temer, from the centre-right PMDB party, is expected to be officially sworn in later on Wednesday.

'Coup d'etat'

Ms Rousseff had been suspended in May after the Senate voted to go ahead with the impeachment process.

She was accused of moving funds between government budgets, which is illegal under Brazilian law.

Her critics said she was trying to plug deficit holes in popular social programmes to boost her chances of being re-elected for a second term in October 2014.

Ms Rousseff fought the allegations, which she said amounted to a coup d'etat.

She argued that her right-wing political rivals had been trying to remove her from office ever since she was re-elected.

Dilma Rousseff's Short History:

• Born in 1947, grew up in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte
• Her father was Bulgarian immigrant and an ex-communist
• Joined left-wing movement against Brazil's military dictatorship which had seized power in 1964
• Detained in 1970 and imprisoned for three years
• Subjected to torture including electric shocks for her role in the underground resistance
• Came to political prominence as the protege of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2011
• Sworn in as Brazil's first female president in 2011
• Re-elected to a second term in 2014
• Impeached on 31 August 2016

"From the day after I was elected, several measures were taken to destabilise my government. And you have been systematically making accusations against me," she said when she defended herself in the Senate on Monday.

She said that she was being ousted because she had allowed a wide-ranging corruption investigation to go ahead which resulted in many high-profile politicians being charged.

Dilma Rousseff's impeachment trial in the Senate has raised important questions about Brazil's democratic institutions.

Was she ousted for having committed a crime - or was that just a pretext to remove a president who had lost control of the economy and politics?

Her fiscal manoeuvres were thoroughly examined during the sessions, but it was not just that which was on trial.

Her government policies, her U-turn on the economy after the election and corruption in her party were constantly part of the debate.

Also, as the trial unfolded, Michel Temer's interim government started its work reforming the economy and outlining new policies.

Senators - and Brazilians - knew that the question of condemning Ms Rousseff went beyond just deciding technically whether she was guilty or not.

But senators who voted in favour of her impeachment said it was Ms Rousseff and the Workers' Party who were corrupt and needed to go.

Brazilians have been divided on the issue, with many expressing their support and loyalty to Ms Rousseff while others have taken part in large demonstrations demanding that she stand down. 

Mr Temer, who will govern until 1 January 2019, has promised to boost Brazil's economy, which is going through its longest and deepest recession in the past quarter of a century.

His critics have already warned that he plans to cut many of the popular social programmes introduced by the Workers' Party.

 Source: BBC

Brazil Senate braces for Rousseff impeachment vote

Brazil's Senate was to vote Wednesday on stripping Dilma Rousseff of the presidency in a traumatic impeachment trial set to end 13 years of leftist rule over Latin America's biggest country.

Senators loyal to Brazil's first female president debated into the night Tuesday in a final attempt to halt the apparently unstoppable momentum toward her dismissal.

Despite the impassioned speeches, which followed 14 hours of testimony by 68-year-old Rousseff herself on Monday, her fate was apparently sealed.

Rousseff, from the leftist Workers' Party, is accused of taking illegal state loans to patch budget holes in 2014, masking the country's problems as it slid into its deepest recession in decades.

She told the Senate that she is innocent, saying the impeachment trial amounts to a right-wing coup d'etat.

However, huge street demonstrations over the last year have reflected nationwide anger at her management of a country suffering double-digit unemployment and inflation.

Two thirds of the Senate -- 54 of 81 senators -- must vote in favor of impeachment to convict her.

"The chances of impeachment not passing and the president being made to step down are virtually nil," political analyst Adriano Codato of Parana University said.

If Rousseff is forced from office, her former vice president turned bitter foe Michel Temer will be immediately sworn in as president until the next scheduled elections in late 2018.

The seventy-five-year-old took over in an interim role after Rousseff's initial suspension in May and at once named a new government with an agenda of shifting Brazil to the right.

- Tears and shouts -

Lawyers presenting closing arguments on Tuesday could not hold back their emotions as the clock wound down on a crisis that has paralyzed Brazilian politics for months, helping deepen national gloom over recession and runaway corruption.

A lead lawyer for the case against Rousseff, Senator Janaina Paschoal, wept as she asked forgiveness for causing the president "suffering," but insisted it was the right thing to do.

"Impeachment is a constitutional remedy that we need to resort to when the situation gets particularly serious, and that is what has happened," she said, rejecting Rousseff's coup claim.

"The Brazilian people must be aware that nothing illegal and illegitimate is being done here."

Rousseff's counsel, veteran lawyer Jose Eduardo Cardozo, retorted that the charges were trumped up to punish the president's support for a huge corruption investigation that has snared many of Brazil's elite.

"This is a farce," he said in a speech during which his voice alternated between shouts and near whispers.

"We should ask her forgiveness if she is convicted," he added. "History will treat her fairly. History will absolve Dilma Rousseff if you convict her."

- Unpopular leaders -

Recalling how she was tortured under Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s, Rousseff had urged senators during her testimony on Monday to "vote against impeachment, vote for democracy... Do not accept a coup."

However, the public reaction to her impeachment trial has been characterized by widespread indifference.

The Workers' Party under Rousseff and her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is credited with raising around 29 million Brazilians out of poverty.

But many now blame the party and Rousseff in particular for the country's multiple ills.

Temer, of the center-right PMDB party, has earned plaudits from investors since taking the interim post. However, it remains uncertain whether he will have voters' support to push through the painful austerity reforms he promises.

Rousseff has barely double-digit approval ratings. But Temer is hardly more popular in opinion polls.

Brazil's Dilma Rousseff to testify at impeachment trial

The impeachment trial of Brazil's Dilma Rousseff will reach a dramatic point on Monday, with the suspended president set to defend herself in the Senate.

Ms Rousseff is accused of illegally manipulating the budget to hide a growing deficit.

She denies the allegations and says the impeachment proceedings amount to a coup d'etat.

Senators are due to vote this week on whether to remove her from office for good or whether to reinstate her.

For her to be removed from the presidency permanently, 54 of the 81 senators would have to vote for her impeachment.

Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo says it has spoken to all the senators ahead of the vote and that 52 have so far declared themselves in favour of the impeachment.

Eighteen told the newspaper they were opposed to the impeachment and 11 either did not say which way they would vote or were undecided.

If Ms Rousseff, 68, is impeached, acting President Michel Temer will serve out her term, which ends in December 2018.

Mr Temer, who was Ms Rousseff's vice-president, assumed the role of acting president in May when Ms Rousseff was suspended from office pending the impeachment trial.

'Political ploy'

Ms Rousseff will be given 30 minutes to speak and is expected to give a passionate defence of her time in office.

The suspended president has in the past said that the impeachment proceedings are a ploy by her political rivals to end the 13 years in power of her left-wing Workers Party.

She has argued that moving money from the state bank to fill budget holes is not an impeachable offence and is something her predecessors in office have also done.

After giving her defence, she will be questioned by senators.

The impeachment vote is scheduled for Tuesday but analysts say it could slip into Wednesday.

On Sunday, a few hundred supporters of Ms Rousseff demonstrated in the capital, Brasilia, against her impeachment and called for the removal of Mr Temer.

But in the past months there have also been large rallies against Ms Rousseff and against corruption in politics in general.

(BBC)