Brazil speaker opens Rousseff impeachment proceedings

Rousseff’s unpopular austerity efforts have foundered as the recession shrinks tax revenue faster than she can trim spending, eroding the credibility of her finance minister and leading Standard & Poor’s to cut Brazil’s credit rating to junk.

Rousseff also alluded to the main accusations against Cunha that have emerged during Operation Lava Jato, pointing out that she does not hold foreign bank accounts and has never concealed assets.

On several occasions over the past few months, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of cities across Brazil to demand the impeachment of the President.

Local media said Cunha made the decision to open Rousseff’s impeachment proceedings after Workers’ Party members of the ethics committee announced Wednesday that they meant to vote to continue investigations into whether Cunha broke parliamentary rules – a vote that had been postponed until next Tuesday.

The figures were substantially worse than expected and led analysts to predict that the downturn would continue to deepen next year.

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

It is based on accusations that Rousseff authorized questionable fiscal maneuvers relating to the country’s accounts.

The process will examine Rousseff’s possible connection to a huge corruption scandal at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras and the decision by Petrobras to buy an overpriced oil refinery in Pasadena, Tex., in 2006 when Rousseff was the company’s board chairwoman, officials said. He now faces being stripped by the lower house ethics committee of his speaker’s post.

“Cunha has created the lowest-level of blackmail a nation can see”, Sen.

Carlos Pereira, of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation think tank, said Cunha had been under vast pressure from the opposition to begin impeachment proceedings, but was now a “dead speaker walking” after waiting too long to make his move.

Dozens of politicians, including Cunha, have been implicated in Brazil’s biggest ever corruption investigation into a price-fixing and political kickback scheme at the state oil company.

The lower house then votes on the committee’s report.

Backed by Brazil’s leading opposition parties, the impeachment request accuses Rousseff of breaching Brazil’s fiscal responsibility law in 2014 and 2015. If impeachment did pass the House, the case would go to the Senate to decide whether she should be removed permanently.

Only 10% of respondents to a Datafolha poll last month characterized Rousseff’s government as “good”, while 22% called it “regular”, and 67% considered it “bad or awful”.