Brasilia: On
Thursday, President Dilma Rousseff launched a late bid to escape an impeachment
vote, seeking a court injunction to halt the proceedings after key allies
deserted her.
Rousseff's attorney
general, Jose Eduardo Cardozo, had asked the top court for an injunction to
suspend Sunday’s lower house vote until the full court can rule on what he
called procedural flaws in the impeachment process. But the court dismissed the
motion 8-2 during a session that ran into the early hours. Brazil's lower house
of Congress is due to vote Sunday on sending Rousseff to trial in the Senate.
The move could push Brazil from political paralysis into a chaotic power vacuum
by ending the 13-year rule of Rousseff’s Workers' Party.
If her impeachment is approved by the
required two-thirds majority of 513 house members, the Senate must then vote on
whether to go ahead with putting Rousseff on trial for breaking budget laws.
That could clear the way for Rousseff's
suspension and replacement by Vice President Michel Temer as soon as early May,
pending a trial that could last six months.
Rousseff,
already struggling with Brazil's worst economic crisis in decades and a
historic corruption scandal, has lost support within her governing coalition.
She faces the growing likelihood of defeat in the lower house vote, which would
send her impeachment to the Senate for trial on charges of breaking budget
laws.
Rousseff is fighting to
save her presidency over charges that she illegally manipulated government
accounts to mask the effects of recession during her 2014 re-election and in
2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment