Brasilia: Tourism
Minister Henrique Eduardo Alves on Monday resigned from his position before
votes on President Dilma Rousseff’s coalition takes place thereby adding more
pressure to embattle the president.
On Tuesday, officials from her coalition
allies, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), will vote to leave the
alliance. PMDB lawmaker Osmar Terra said: “It will be an exit meeting, a
goodbye to the government. We calculate we have a vote of more than 80 percent
in favor of quitting.”
Alves became the first PMDB member to stand
down from government.
On the other hand, Rousseff, who is
fighting recession, scandal, protests and the mounting push to impeach her, met
PMDB ministers on Monday to try to convince them to stay.
Opposition lawmakers want to remove
Rousseff over claims she manipulated accounts to hide growing deficit.
Rousseff, a former political prisoner during Brazil's military government,
began her second term in office 14 months ago. But her popularity has plummeted
amid corruption allegations around senior members of the governing Workers'
Party. The speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, agreed in
December to open impeachment proceedings against her. Last week, Rousseff, who
denies the allegations, said that the procedure amounted to a coup.
Since the beginning of March, millions
of Brazilians have marched to demand Rousseff's ouster.
The PMDB currently has seven ministers
and 69 of the 513 members of the lower house of Congress, where Rousseff is
struggling to come up with the one-third vote she needs to block impeachment.
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