Senate votes to impeach Brazilian president

Dilma Rousseff to stand down during senate trial on whether her government manipulated economic figures.

Dilma Rousseff faces an 180-day trial by the senate after being impeached for allegedly manipulating economic figures. Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters / May 4, 2016

BRASILIA // Brazil’s senate voted on Thursday to impeach president Dilma Rousseff after a months-long fight that laid bare the country’s fury over corruption and economic decay.

The move throws Latin America’s largest country into political turmoil just months before it hosts the Summer Olympics.

Ms Rousseff’s backers called the move a coup and threatened wide-scale protests and strikes. Her foes, meanwhile, insisted that she had broken the law, and that the country’s deep political, social and economic woes could only be tackled without her.

The 55-22 vote means that Ms Rousseff’s ally-turned-enemy, vice president Michel Temer, will take over as acting president while she is suspended. The senate has 180 days to conduct a trial and decide whether Ms Rousseff should be removed from office permanently.

“Did anyone think that we would get to 2018 with a recovery under this government? Impossible,” said Jose Serra, the opposition Social Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2010 presidential election that brought Ms Rousseff into power. “The impeachment is just the start of the reconstruction.”

Ms Rousseff, 68, was impeached for allegedly using illegal accounting tricks that critics said were meant to hide ballooning deficits and bolster an embattled government.

Brazil’s first female president, who was tortured under the country’s dictatorship, has frequently blasted the impeachment push as a modern-day coup, arguing she had not been charged with a crime and previous presidents did similar things.

She has also suggested that sexism in the male-dominated congress played a role in the impeachment.

Ms Rousseff’s suspension and probable permanent removal ends 13 years of rule by the left-leaning Workers’ Party, which is credited with lifting millions out of poverty but vilified for being in charge when billions were siphoned from the state oil company Petrobras.

Analysts also say Ms Rousseff got herself into trouble with a prickly manner and a perceived reticence to work with legislators that may have alienated possible allies.

Mr Temer, a 75-year-old career politician, has promised to cut spending and privatise many sectors controlled by the state. For weeks, he has been quietly putting together a new cabinet, angering Rousseff supporters. The lower house voted 367-137 last month in favour of impeachment.

The marathon debate in the senate began on Wednesday morning and took 20 hours as dozens of members rose to speak.

Humberto Costa, the Workers’ Party leader in the senate, brandished a photo of Ms Rousseff from her days as a young Marxist guerrilla during the country’s 1964-1985 dictatorship at the military proceedings against her.

Mr Costa called the impeachment the second unjust trial Ms Rousseff has endured, saying it was a bid by Brazil’s traditional ruling classes to reassert their power and roll back Workers’ Party policies in favour of the poor.

“The Brazilian elite, the ruling class, which keeps treating this county as if it was their hereditary dominion, does not appreciate democracy,” he said.

When the impeachment measure was introduced in congress last year, it was generally viewed as a long shot. As late as February, experts were predicting it would not even make it out of committee in the lower chamber of deputies.

But the momentum built as Brazilians seethed over numerous corruption scandals linked to Petrobras and daily announcements of job losses added to a growing desperation. Brazil’s economy is expected to contract nearly 4 per cent after an equally dismal 2015 and inflation and unemployment are hovering around 10 per cent, underscoring a sharp decline after the South American giant enjoyed stellar growth for more than a decade.

Polls show that a majority of Brazilians supported impeaching Ms Rousseff, though they also suggest the public is wary about those in line to take her place.

“Dilma is a bad president and waiting until 2018 was a horrible option,” said cab driver Alessandro Novais in Rio de Janeiro. “I don’t think Temer will be much better, but at least we can try something different to overcome the crisis.”

Mr Temer has been implicated in the Petrobras corruption scheme as has Renan Calheiros, the senate head who is now second in line to the presidency. Former house speaker Eduardo Cunha, who had been second in line, was suspended from office this month over allegations of obstruction of justice and corruption.

Ms Rousseff has denied her administration’s budget moves constituted a crime and argued that such manoeuvres were used by prior presidents without repercussions. She has stressed that, unlike many of those who have pushed for impeachment, she does not face any allegations of personal corruption.

“I think Brazil went backward in institutional maturity,” said Tiago Cordeiro, digital media consultant. “I am shocked to see how people find it OK to oust a president without reason.”

Mr Calheiros said Ms Rousseff would remain in the presidential residence during her trial. She will have security guards, health care, and the right to travel, as well as staff for her personal office and a salary, the senate head said.

Mr Temer, of the centrist Democratic Movement Party, says he will expand popular social programmes, though he has also signalled that fiscal rigour is needed to dig Brazil out of its current financial hole.

The investigation into a multibillion-dollar kickback scheme at Petrobras has ensnared dozens of elite politicians and businessmen across the political spectrum. Although Ms Rousseff has not been implicated, top officials in her party were and that tarnished her reputation.

The president “is having to pay for everything,” said senator Telmario Mota de Oliveira.

* Associated Press