In a development that is almost certain to evict Rousseff from office, the Brazilian President on Sunday lost an important impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lost a decisive impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress on Sunday and appeared almost certain to be forced from office in a move that would end 13 years of leftist Workers' Party rule.
As thousands of pro- and anti-impeachment protesters demonstrated outside Congress, the leader of the Workers Party in the lower house conceded defeat with the vote standing at 314 votes in favour to just 110 votes against sending Rousseff for trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budget accounts.The surprisingly one-sided vote had a raucous atmosphere with opposition legislators crowding around the microphone and cheering every vote against the unpopular president. At least two deputies let off poppers full of confetti as they voted to impeach Rousseff.
If the Senate agrees to go ahead with the impeachment, as seems likely, Rousseff would be suspended from her post and be replaced by Vice President Michel Temer as acting president pending her trial. Temer would serve out Rousseff's term until 2018 if she is found guilty.
A time of uncertainty
The impeachment battle, which comes during Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, has divided the country of 200 million people more deeply than at any time since the end of its military dictatorship in 1985. It has also sparked a bitter battle between the 68-year-old Rousseff and Temer, 75, that appears likely to destabilise any future government and plunge Brazil into months of uncertainty.
Despite anger at rising unemployment, Rousseff's Workers Party can rely on strong support among millions of working-class Brazilians, who credit its welfare programs with pulling their families out of poverty during the past decade. "The fight is going to continue now in the streets and in the federal Senate," said Jose Guimaraes, the leader of the Workers' Party in the lower house, conceding that the government had lost the vote. "We lost because the coup-mongers were stronger."
Opinion polls suggest more than 60% of Brazilians support impeaching Rousseff, Brazil's first female president. While she has not been accused of corruption, Rousseff's government has been tainted by a vast graft scandal at state oil company Petrobras and by the economic recession.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from both sides took to the streets of towns and cities across the vast nation. Millions watched the Congressional vote live on television in bars and restaurants, in their homes or on giant screens in the street. On the grassy esplanade outside Congress, a 6.5-foot-high (2-metre) security barrier ran for more than 1 km separating rival demonstrations, a symbol of the political rift that has emerged in one of the world's most unequal societies.
(Political risk consultancy Eurasia said Rousseff could still try to cobble together support from centrist parties.)
In Brazil's southern economic powerhouse of Sao Paulo, thousands of pro-impeachment demonstrators packed the central Avenida Paulista, draped in Brazilian flags and waving banners reading: "Dilma out".
"We need to make this country viable again," said Paulo Tosi Marques, 66, a retired business administrator at the pro-impeachment demonstration in Sao Paulo. "Look at what we have - corruption, inflation and an unprecedented crisis."
PARALYSED GOVERNMENT
The impeachment battle has paralysed the activity of government in Brasilia, just four months before the country is due to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and as it seeks to battle an epidemic of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in newborns.
Critics of the impeachment process say it has become a referendum on Rousseff's popularity - currently languishing in single digits - which sets a worrying precedent for ousting unpopular leaders in the future. They note that Rousseff is accused of a budgetary slight of hand commonly employed by many elected officials in Brazil. With Brazilians transfixed by the Congressional vote, broadcast live on television, legislators denounced corruption and the economic downturn as they voted against Rousseff - but few of them mentioned the budgetary allegations.
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