Brazil President to Press Supreme Court to Stop Impeachment
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's party was appealing Thursday to the Supreme Court to block impeachment proceedings, in the first counter-blow of a battle plunging Latin America's biggest country into political turmoil.
The morning after the speaker of the lower house of Congress triggered the impeachment process against Rousseff on grounds that she illegally manipulated government accounts, her Workers' Party sprang into action.
The leftist party's strong stand, coming after a defiant and angry statement from Rousseff late Wednesday, signaled the start of a political fight that experts say will paralyze a country already suffering from a deepening recession and a spiraling corruption scandal centered on state oil giant Petrobras.
However, reflecting the business community's hope that impeachment would end months of political drift, the Sao Paulo stock market leaped more than four percent on opening.
- Accusing the accuser -
Paulo Pimenta, a Workers' Party deputy, told AFP complaints were being filed that Speaker Eduardo Cunha is using the impeachment drive as an attempt to save his own career after being accused of corruption.
"We are studying a series of measures that aim to block the process," Pimenta said.
The Supreme Court appeal will charge Cunha with "abuse of power and using the legislative power structure to defend himself."
As speaker, Cunha alone has authority to accept or turn down petitions for the president's impeachment and late Wednesday he accepted one filed by several lawyers alleging that Rousseff used illegal methods to mask holes in the government budget.
Cunha is fighting for his political life after having been accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes and hiding money in Swiss bank accounts. He now faces being stripped by the lower house ethics committee of his speaker's post.
- Committee to decide -
Analysts say the whole impeachment process -- if it passes the many legal hurdles along the way -- could take as long as six or seven months.
Rousseff said Wednesday she is confident she will survive the assault and her allies told O Globo newspaper that they have enough votes to block an impeachment vote.
"I have not committed one illegal act," Rousseff said on national television late Wednesday.
"My past and my present attest to my moral probity and my irreproachable commitment to the law."
However, with Rousseff deeply unpopular and recession threatening to turn into depression, analysts say she cannot be sure public support.
Cunha was expected later Thursday to order the first step in the long impeachment procedure -- the creation of a special committee featuring representatives of all the parties in the lower house.
The 66-strong committee will then decide whether the case should go to a vote in the full house.
If a two-thirds majority approves, it then goes to the upper house for an impeachment trial, where another two-thirds majority would force Rousseff from office.
- Economic nosedive -
The world's seventh biggest economy is already in deepening recession and risks entering depression.
Rousseff has already been unable to get Congressional approval for austerity measures and tax increases that aim to rebalance the budget and restore investor confidence.
That gridlock "will continue and get worse. She can't approve anything in Congress. She has zero governability," David Fleischer, a political science professor at Brasilia University, told AFP.
Looking longer term, however, markets welcomed the prospect of a resolution to a crisis that has been dragging on already for months. A Rousseff departure could open the door to the return of a more pro-business president such as Senator Aecio Neves, who was narrowly defeated by Rousseff in her reelection last year.
Rousseff is widely blamed for a lack of leadership during Brazil's economic drift which has seen third quarter GDP fall 4.5 percent year-on-year.
Petrobras, which is at the center of a huge corruption scandal sucking in politicians and top executives, was among the shares jumping in value in the wake of the impeachment announcement.
Source: Agence France Presse
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