Brazilian politics descended into turmoil yesterday after the first female president of the nation Dilma Rousseff was hauled out of office following an impeachement trial in which a staggering 61 out of 81 members of the senate voted against her. It has also been reported in several sections of the media that the corrupt senate members ganged up against her. Rousseff had 2 years and 4 months remaining in her tenuer and Michel Temer, her adversary, would now complete the tenure. It is also worth noting that the Brazilian senate conducted a seperate poll in which Rousseff was barred from holding public office in the country for the next 8 years. Right after the verdict, Rousseff addressed her supporters and said, "Right now, I will not say goodbye to you. I am certain I can say, 'See you soon,'"
According to a report in the Guardian, " For more than 10 months, the leftist leader fought efforts to impeach her for frontloading funds for government social programmes and issuing spending budget decrees without congressional approval ahead of her reelection in 2014. The opposition claimed that these constituted a "crime of responsibility". Rousseff denies this and claims the charges - which were never levelled at previous administrations who did the same thing - have been trumped up by opponents who were unable to accept the Workers' party's victory.
Speaking to her supporters from the presidential palace after the vote, Rousseff pledged to appeal her impeachment, which she called a parliamentary coup. The ousted president also called on her supporters to fight the conservative agenda now bolstered by her removal from office. "
The report went on to add, "In keeping with her pledge to fight until the end for the 54 million voters who put her in office, Rousseff - a former Marxist guerrilla - ended her presidency this week with a gritty 14-hour defence of her government's achievements and a sharply worded attack on the "usurpers" and "coup-mongers" who ejected her from power without an election.
Her lawyer, José Eduardo Cardozo, said the charges were trumped up to punish the president's support for a huge corruption investigation that has snared many of Brazil's elite. This follows secret recordings of Romero Jucá, the majority leader of the senate and a key Temer ally, plotting to remove the president to halt the Lava Jato (car wash) investigation into kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras."
