Rousseff’s impeachment trial opens in Brazil

The trial of the country’s first female president accused of breaking the budget law opened in Brazil’s capital on Thursday and is broadcast by major TV channels, radio stations and Internet portals.

The first Brazilian woman president has accused her opponents of trumping up the charges against her to remove her in a “coup”.

Rousseff herself will appear in-person on Monday and senators will then take a final vote, either on August 30 or 31, on whether she should be impeached.

The impeachment trial against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff began Thursday with the prosecution’s main witness disqualified. Acting President Michel Temer, who was Rousseff’s vice president and is known as a behind-the-scenes dealmaker, has been fingered for alleged bribery by witnesses who have reached plea deals in the Petrobras case, although he has not been charged with any crime.

Kicking off proceedings at 09:33, Ricardo Lewandowski, president of Brazil’s Supreme Court, read out the order of proceedings to a sparsely filled Senate chamber, with only 28 of 81 senators present.

The notoriously inflexible Rousseff was unable to stop the fraying of her patchwork alliance in Congress.

She however, denies the allegations and calls the entire process a technical coup d’etat driven by politicians implicated in a massive corruption investigation.

“No one here has the right to judge anybody”, she said.

If he is confirmed as president by Rousseff’s ouster, Temer would face a daunting task: steering Latin America’s largest economy out of recession and plugging a budget deficit that topped 10 percent of gross domestic product. Still, investors and members of Temer’s fragile coalition are concerned he has yet to implement measures to control the deficit.

Temer’s team has sought to speed up the trial so he can set about restoring confidence in a once-booming economy and remove any doubts about his legitimacy.

Rousseff loyalist Senator Gleisi Hoffman told AFP she thought that impeachment could still be defeated. Should she be convicted of violating the constitution by approving finances without informing Congress, she will be removed from office and won’t be able to run again for years. Several businessmen and top politicians have been jailed, including some connected to Rousseff’s government, and a number of opposition officials are also in investigators’ sights. But for that to happen, both she and Temer would have to resign or be removed. He is then expected to address the nation before heading to the summit of the G20 group of leading economies in Hangzhou, China on September 4-5 on his first trip overseas.

Her impeachment would bring an end to 13 years of Workers’ Party rule. Rousseff is expected to give her speech on August 29. But even the leaders of her own Workers’ Party this week rejected the idea, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported.

“What I saw today was pretty boring, and it’s pretty much decided anyway that she’s leaving”, said 24 year-old Quivia Cruz da Silva, who cleans offices in downtown Brasilia.

“What they’re doing is finding a way to take power without winning votes in an election”, he said.