Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was only hours from possibly being suspended at the start of an impeachment trial Wednesday in a political crisis paralyzing Latin America's largest country.
Her government lawyer lodged a last-ditch appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the court would even respond in time.
Barring a dramatic twist in events, the Senate was to start debating impeachment at approximately 9:00 am, with voting expected either
Her government lawyer lodged a last-ditch appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the court would even respond in time.
Barring a dramatic twist in events, the Senate was to start debating impeachment at approximately 9:00 am, with voting expected either late at night or in the early hours of Thursday.
A majority of more than half of the senators in the 81-member chamber would trigger the opening of a trial and Rousseff's automatic suspension for up
A majority of more than half of the senators in the 81-member chamber would trigger the opening of a trial and Rousseff's automatic suspension for up to six months. In the final judgement, removing her from office would require a two-thirds majority.
She is accused of breaking budgetary laws by taking loans to boost public spending and mask the sinking state of the economy during her tight 2014 re-election campaign.
Rousseff says the accounting maneuvers were standard practice for many governments in the past and describes the impeachment as a coup mounted by her vice president, Michel Temer, who will take over if she is suspended.
A onetime Marxist guerrilla tortured under Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s, Rousseff therefore faces possibly her final day in power Wednesday.
Her official agenda released daily to the public contained a solitary item: "Internal paperwork."
Rousseff vows to resist.
"I am going to fight with all my strength, using all means available," she told a women's forum in Brasilia on Tuesday.
Rousseff called her opponents "people (who) can't win the presidency through a popular vote" and claimed they had a "project to dismantle" social gains made by millions of poor during 13 years of Workers' Party rule.
In an effort to cripple Temer's ambitions, Rousseff allies went to the top electoral court asking that the prob ..
The country's first female president has also become deeply unpopular with most Brazilians, who blame her for presiding over the recession and a massive corruption scandal centered on the state oil company Petrobras.
In an already chaotic week in which the interim speaker of the lower house tried to order the upper house to halt impeachment proceedings -- only to back down hours later -- there was no patching over the sprawling South American country's deep divisions.
Workers' Party faithful on Tuesday burned tires and blocked roads in Brasilia and in Sao Paulo in a potential taste of more street trouble to come.
Lawmaker Jose Guimaraes, a Rousseff ally, said that despite almost certain defeat in the initial Senate vote, the impeachment trial itself would be an all-out fight.
"We will have 180 days in the Senate, talking with every one of them, to get them to change their minds," he told journalists, warning that "our main fight today will b ..
Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com
Her government lawyer lodged a last-ditch appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the court would even respond in time.
Barring a dramatic twist in events, the Senate was to start debating impeachment at approximately 9:00 am, with voting expected either
Her government lawyer lodged a last-ditch appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the court would even respond in time.
Barring a dramatic twist in events, the Senate was to start debating impeachment at approximately 9:00 am, with voting expected either late at night or in the early hours of Thursday.
A majority of more than half of the senators in the 81-member chamber would trigger the opening of a trial and Rousseff's automatic suspension for up
A majority of more than half of the senators in the 81-member chamber would trigger the opening of a trial and Rousseff's automatic suspension for up to six months. In the final judgement, removing her from office would require a two-thirds majority.
She is accused of breaking budgetary laws by taking loans to boost public spending and mask the sinking state of the economy during her tight 2014 re-election campaign.
Rousseff says the accounting maneuvers were standard practice for many governments in the past and describes the impeachment as a coup mounted by her vice president, Michel Temer, who will take over if she is suspended.
A onetime Marxist guerrilla tortured under Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s, Rousseff therefore faces possibly her final day in power Wednesday.
Her official agenda released daily to the public contained a solitary item: "Internal paperwork."
Rousseff vows to resist.
"I am going to fight with all my strength, using all means available," she told a women's forum in Brasilia on Tuesday.
Rousseff called her opponents "people (who) can't win the presidency through a popular vote" and claimed they had a "project to dismantle" social gains made by millions of poor during 13 years of Workers' Party rule.
In an effort to cripple Temer's ambitions, Rousseff allies went to the top electoral court asking that the prob ..
The country's first female president has also become deeply unpopular with most Brazilians, who blame her for presiding over the recession and a massive corruption scandal centered on the state oil company Petrobras.
In an already chaotic week in which the interim speaker of the lower house tried to order the upper house to halt impeachment proceedings -- only to back down hours later -- there was no patching over the sprawling South American country's deep divisions.
Workers' Party faithful on Tuesday burned tires and blocked roads in Brasilia and in Sao Paulo in a potential taste of more street trouble to come.
Lawmaker Jose Guimaraes, a Rousseff ally, said that despite almost certain defeat in the initial Senate vote, the impeachment trial itself would be an all-out fight.
"We will have 180 days in the Senate, talking with every one of them, to get them to change their minds," he told journalists, warning that "our main fight today will b ..
Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com
