Brazil speaker opens impeachment proceedings against president

Despite her re-election past year, Rousseff’s second term has been marred by a corruption scandal involving her own Workers’ Party that has sent her approval rating plummeting and provoked mass protests.

Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets across the country in recent months demanding Rousseff’s impeachment.

While impeachment is expected to get by the commission, most political analysts say it’s unlikely to get the two-thirds vote of the lower house that would remove her from office temporarily.

Constitutional expert Ives Gandra Martins, who wrote in a legal opinion this year that there was a juridical basis for impeachment, said the process would ultimately be decided politically.

“I received with indignation the decision of the president of the House of Representatives to process the request for impeachment against the democratic mandate conferred on me by the Brazilian people”, she said.

“I’ve committed no illicit act, there is no suspicion hanging over me of any misuse of public money”, the president said.

Brazil’s political establishment is already close to paralysis due to an investigation into a massive graft scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras that has heightened political tensions and created gridlock in Brasilia.

Ms Rousseff has faced mounting calls for her resignation for running the once-booming Brazilian economy to a standstill.

“While a sharp drop in volatile agricultural output slightly exaggerates the third quarter’s contraction, Brazil’s economy is as bad as the headline numbers look”, Bill Adams, senior global economist at PNC Financial Services Group, said, in an emailed statement.

In 1992, then president Fernando Collor de Mello stepped down ahead of his impeachment on corruption charges. After receiving Rousseff’s defense they will then have five sessions to make a decision to accept or reject the accusations. Cunha has denied any wrongdoing.

Aécio Neves, the main opposition candidate whom Rousseff defeated in last year’s election, said on Twitter that he supported the proposal.

The government is likely to legally challenge the impeachment, said Sylvio Costa, founder of the political news site Congress In Focus.

Dozens of politicians, together with Cunha, have been implicated in Brazil’s largest ever corruption investigation right into a worth-fixing and political kickback scheme on the state oil firm. Her opponents say she should be held accountable.

-If advanced by the commission, the impeachment measure would be debated and voted on by the House of Deputies. “My past and my present attest to my integrity and my unquestionable commitment to the laws and public affairs”, she stated.