Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff Brands Vice President A Traitor, Denounces ‘Coup’

Brasilia: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday branded her vice-president a traitor and a coup-plotter ahead of an impeachment vote scheduled in Congress for this Sunday.

Rousseff said: “If there were any doubts about my denunciation that a coup is underway, there can’t be now.” Referring to the leak of an audio recording in which her vice president, Michel Temer, practices the speech he would make if Rousseff is impeached, the president said: “The conspirators’ mask has slipped.” “We are living in strange and worrying times, times of a coup and pretending and treachery,” she said. “Yesterday, they used the pretense of a leak to give the order for the conspiracy,” she further added.

After a congressional committee voted to recommend Rousseff’s ouster in chaotic and bad-tempered scenes late Monday, the stage was set for a showdown in the full lower house this weekend. Deputies were due to start debating on Friday, with a decisive vote on Sunday.

Temer, who will take over if Rousseff is impeached, countered that a war was being waged against him on both a personal and professional level. He said: “I'm not waging war, I'm defending myself.”
Making it clear he was ready to step in Rousseff's shoes, Temer, 75, added: “Without being pretentious, but with much modesty, I must say that I have a lot of experience in public life.”

Rousseff is in the final stretch of a bruising attempt to save her presidency from impeachment on charges that she illegally manipulated government accounts to mask the effects of recession during her 2014 re-election.