Brazil’s Senate convenes to form presidential impeachment commission
Brazil’s Senate has convened to choose the members of a commission responsible for following up on the impeachment process of embattled President Dilma Rousseff.
Expected to be dominated by pro-impeachment senators, the commission -- comprising 21 of the 81 senators -- is scheduled to decide in early May on whether to move forward with the case.
The Senate then votes -- most probably on May 12 -- whether to open an impeachment trial against Rousseff.
If 41 of the 81 senators approve the impeachment, Rousseff will have to stay away from power for up to six months. She will then stand trial in the Senate, which will decide whether to disqualify her for presidency. If Rousseff is removed from office, her vice-president-turned-opponent Michel Temer would retain the presidency until scheduled elections in 2018.
The Brazilian president suffered a crushing defeat after losing a lower house vote that sent her case to the Senate and put her just weeks away from being ejected from office.
On April 17, two-thirds of the 513 delegates in Brazil's lower house of Congress voted in favor of impeaching Rousseff, based on allegations that she manipulated fiscal rules in the lead-up to her 2014 re-election.
The incumbent president is also under fire over a graft scandal at the state oil company Petrobras, where she was the manager before taking office as president in 2010.
Recently, she further angered the opposition by giving a top cabinet position to her predecessor and ally Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is himself implicated in the corruption case. Opponents say the move is aimed at granting him immunity from prosecution. However, Rousseff has denied the allegations against her as politically-motivated.
Recent polls show that over 60 percent of Brazil’s 200 million people back impeaching Rousseff.
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