By Senabri Silvestre
SANTO DOMINGO, Dom. Rep. (AA) – Brazil’s Senate will vote Wednesday whether to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office for allegedly masking fiscal budget deficits in 2014 and 2015, local media said Tuesday.
Her possible dismissal was denounced by Bolivian President Evo Morales, who warned on Twitter that he would recall the country’s ambassador to Brazil If the vote succeeds in what he called a “parliamentary coup” against Rousseff.
“We have to defend democracy and peace”, he added, after criticizing the absence of the Organization of American Stated (OAS)’s chief Luis Almagro on the subject.
Almagro has been criticized by some of the organizations members for taking strong action against Venezuela’s government but failing to take steps against the new government in Brazil many consider as coming into office through a coup.
Morales said the president of the regional bloc “only appear to defend the right”.
Rousseff’s dismissal is all but assured with 54 Senators publicly expressing their intentions to vote in favor of her removal and just 20 opposed in the 81-member body, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Folha De Sao Paulo newspaper.
If the votes hold, the Brazilian president would be removed, marking an end to 13 years rule of the Working Party’s government.
Lawmakers made their final arguments on the case Tuesday during a marathon session in which 65 senators had previously signed up to speak, Supreme Court’s President Ricardo Lewandowski said.
Rousseff was suspended in May to face a political trial for allegedly violating fiscal rules to hide a budget deficit ahead of the 2014 presidential elections.
She reiterated her innocence Monday while making her own case before the Senate she accuses of preparing a “coup” that would choose a “usurper government” indirectly.
“The accusations are pretexts, only pretexts to break down through charges of a crime of responsibility a legitimate government elected with the direct participation of 110 million Brazilians,” Rousseff said.
One irregularity attributed to the president is that she issued various credit decrees without congressional authorization but Rousseff insisted she “would never do or practice anything contrary to the interests of those who chose her” in the 2014 elections.
She is also accused of delaying public payments in 2014 and 2015 in order to use the funds to support the government’s social program, in violation of the Fiscal Responsibility Law.
She appealed to the lawmakers’ conscience by reviewing her political career and her years in prison when she was involved with groups fighting against a dictatorship in the early 1970s.
If the Senate votes to remove Rousseff, interim President Michel Temer would remain in his position until elections are held in 2018 — the end of Rousseff’s term.
Should she survive, Rousseff would retain her position and Temer would go back to his post as vice president.
