On Wednesday morning, Brazil’s Senate started a very important session in which senators will vote whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.
Despite the last-minute appeal to annul the impeachment vote that Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, has filled on Tuesday, she will have to face the impeachment proceedings. In an appeal to the Brazil’s Supreme Court, General Eduardo Cardozo asked judges to annul the impeachment vote, scheduled for Wednesday.
The appeal was based on the grounds that the accusations against Rousseff were politically motivated and lacked a legal basis. The court started to consider the appeal just 12 hours before the scheduled debate on the Senate.
In a speech to a women’s forum in the capital, Brasilia, earlier in the day, Rousseff said that she never considered resignation.
“I am going to fight with all my strength, using all means available,” she added.
If a simple majority of the 81 senators –more than a half of Brazil’s senators –vote in favor, then the president will be automatically suspended from office for half a year. In this case, Vice President Michel Temer would take over until a decision is taken on whether to remove Rousseff from office permanently.
Reactions to the important session of Brazil’s Senate
Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff is being accused of breaking budgetary laws. The president claims she’s the victim of a Temer’s plot to oust her concocted. Temer’s center-right party broke with Rousseff’s Workers’ Party several months ago.
The pontiff hopes that Brazil “proceeds on the path of harmony and peace,”he said at his general audience on Wednesday.
On Tuesday evening, hundreds of Rousseff’s supporters barricaded roads and blocked streets all around the country. Meanwhile, in the capital, Brasilia, authorities had to set up a kilometer-long “impeachment wall” between the Brazilian congress and the city’s cathedral. This measure was taken in order to separate protesters who support Rousseff from those calling for her ouster.
On a statement posted on the Vatican Radio Web site, Pope Francis addressed the expected to result in the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The Pope is calling for “prayer and dialogue” in Brazil, Latin America’s biggest country.
Source: DW