Brazil's lower house begins vote on Rousseff impeachment
Lawmakers in Brazil's lower house have begun voting on whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.
BRASILIA (Agencies) - Lawmakers in Brazil s lower house have begun voting on whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. For the measure to pass, at least 342 of 513 lawmakers must approve it.
So far, at least 161 lawmakers have voted in favor of impeachment, and at least 42 have voted against it.
Weeks of raucous debates inside Brazil s Congress and rival protests outside came to a head Sunday as the country s lower house prepared to vote on whether to impeach the President.
If the motion is approved, President Dilma Rousseff could be suspended as early as May. That would be about three months before the Summer Olympics kick off in Rio de Janeiro, an event that was supposed to showcase Brazil as a rising power on the global stage.
Two-thirds of the 513 lawmakers would need to approve the impeachment motion for it to continue to the Senate.
As lawmakers made fiery speeches and even sang during the debate, throngs of demonstrators waited outside.
Police erected a 1-kilometre-long barricade on the lawn in front of Congress to separate anti-government protesters from Rousseff supporters.
Activists supporting Rousseff s impeachment take part in a protest Sunday in Sao Paulo.
Advocates for impeachment dressed in yellow and green at protests across the country.
Pro-government supporters wore red, the colors of Rousseff s Workers Party.
Opponents blame Rousseff for the worst recession in decades, now in its second year. They also hold her accountable for a massive bribery and corruption scandal that has engulfed dozens of politicians in the Workers Party and coalition government.
Brazil’s first female president is accused of illegal government accounting tricks but, more broadly, is blamed for the country’s worst recession in decades and galloping corruption.
The whole procedure was being aired live on television to the country of 204 million, the biggest in Latin America, and also on screens erected in city squares.
Pro-impeachment deputy Antonio Imbassahy, from the PSDB party, told lawmakers that Brazil needed "moral reconstruction."
But Afonso Florence, from Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, urged a "democratic conscience" and attacked impeachment leaders like Cunha as the most corrupt.
Latest estimates in major Brazilian newspapers indicated that pro-impeachment deputies in the house would succeed. They need 342 of the 513 votes, or two-thirds of the house.
But Jose Guimaraes, a senior member of the Workers’ Party, said the opposition was "far from 342."
In Brasilia about 18,000 pro-impeachment demonstrators massed outside Congress, according to a police count. About half that number turned out on the pro-Rousseff side, separated by a metal fence.
In Rio de Janeiro, which is scrambling to organize the Olympics this August, about 3,000 people each from the two sides demonstrated at separate time slots next to Copacabana beach.
So far, the atmosphere on the streets was peaceful, even festive, with a funk band singing in Rio and protesters blowing trumpets and vuvuzelas, as if at a football game, in Brasilia.
In Sao Paulo, the financial center, thousands of pro-impeachment supporters thronged the central Paulista Avenue, many of them in the country’s green and yellow national football shirts.
In Brasilia, psychologist Eric Gamaliel, 29, said he’d joined pro-Rousseff protesters because impeachment would mean "Brazil loses a lot. The world will lose a lot. It will be a step backwards."
But farmer Silmar Borazio, 50, who made a 20-hour journey to the capital with pro-impeachment supporters, said Brazil needs change.
"The first thing that needs to happen is for Dilma to leave. We are tired of producing revenue and seeing that in the end nothing improves in the country and it gets stolen," he said.
Rousseff, 68, is accused of illegal accounting maneuvers to mask government shortfalls during her 2014 reelection. Many Brazilians also hold her responsible for the economic mess and a massive corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras, a toxic record that has left her government with 10 percent approval ratings.
The president and her allies lobbied frantically in a last-minute effort to turn a tide that appeared to be going against Rousseff. Her mentor, the fiery ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, flew back from his home in Sao Paulo to join the final assault.
If she can prevent the opposition reaching 342 votes Sunday, she will escape, even though opposition leaders warn they will quickly launch a new impeachment attempt.
Most experts think the vote will pass.
If so, then the Senate will vote, probably in May, whether to open a trial. In case of a yes vote there, which experts also consider likely, then Rousseff would step down for 180 days.
During this period she’d be replaced by her vice president Michel Temer, who has emerged as a leader of the impeachment drive. If the Senate then ended the trial with a two-thirds majority in favor of ejecting her, Temer would stay on until elections in 2018.
Sylvio Costa, who heads the specialist politics website Congresso en Foco, told AFP that Rousseff was nearly sure to go, but that more trouble lies ahead.
"Whoever loses will keep protesting in the streets," he said. "What’s certain is that the crisis will not end today."
