Marathon final debates started yesterday on the eve of the judgment vote in the impeachment trial of Brazil’s suspended leftist president Dilma Rousseff, who appears likely to be stripped of office.
Lawyers on both sides of the political divide in Latin America’s biggest country made impassioned closing arguments, followed by the start of final speeches from senators that were set to stretch into early today.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski told the Senate that the vote on Rousseff’s fate, originally set for yesterday, would be put off to today.
Brazil’s first woman president, 68, 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.
Latest estimates from independent analysts and pro-impeachment senators are that the upper chamber will easily reach the two thirds majority — 54 out of 81 senators — to convict Rousseff.
Loyalists say they haven’t yet lost hope of saving the Workers’ Party president and extending 13 years of leftist rule.
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.
Temer took over in an interim role after Rousseff’s suspension in May and at once named a new government with an agenda to shift Brazil to the right.
Rousseff, in a 14-hour appearance on Monday, defiantly challenged senators to acquit her, saying that the impeachment case amounted to a coup d’etat.
Lawyers presenting closing arguments yesterday could not hold back their emotions as the clock wound down on a crisis that has paralysed Brazilian politics for months and helped deepen the national gloom over recession and runaway corruption.
A lead lawyer making the case against Rousseff, 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,” Paschoal said, rejecting Rousseff’s “coup” claim.
“The Brazilian people must be aware that nothing illegal and illegitimate is being done here.”
Rousseff’s veteran lawyer Jose Eduardo Cardozo retorted that Rousseff was being made to pay for supporting corruption investigations against her rivals.
“This is a farce,” he said in an impassioned speech during which his voice alternated from shouts to near whispers.
Recalling how she was tortured under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, Rousseff on Monday urged senators during her testimony to “vote against impeachment, vote for democracy... Do not accept a coup.”
However, momentum to push her out of office appears unstoppable, fuelled by deep anger over Brazil’s devastating recession, dysfunctional politics and a vast corruption scandal centred on the state oil giant Petrobras.
Despite her strong words in the Senate, public reaction to Rousseff’s impeachment trial has been characterized by widespread indifference, as Brazilians struggle with rising inflation and unemployment.
Some 2,000 flag-waving supporters rallied to support her near the Senate building in the capital Brasilia late on Monday — a fraction of the crowds her Workers’ Party has drawn in the past.
Protesters also gathered in Sao Paulo, where they lit fires and riot police fired tear gas to disperse them.
The Workers’ Party under Rousseff and her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is credited with raising around 29mn Brazilians out of poverty.
But many now blame the party for the country’s multiple ills, accusing Rousseff of mismanagement in particular.
Temer, of the centre-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, according to opinion polls.

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