News / Brazil

Brazil impeachment committee recommends Rousseff removal

Thursday, 04 August 2016 6:01 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 06 August 2016 11:00 AM ]

Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff waves as she arrives at a construction site in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil on June 9, 2016. (AFP Photo)

A special Senate committee in Brazil has recommended that the full upper house should remove suspended president Dilma Rousseff from office, one day ahead of the opening of the 2016 Olympics in the city of Rio.

The non-binding recommendation, passed on Thursday by the 21-member Senate Impeachment Committee in a 14 to five vote, places Rousseff one step closer to ouster.

"The committee vote confirms not only that Rousseff knowingly broke fiscal laws, but also that she was a dishonest administrator," committee member, Senator Ricardo Ferraço, told reporters.

On Tuesday, a Senate report determined that Rousseff had violated the constitution by manipulating government accounts.

Rousseff had allegedly spent national funds without congressional consent.

The suspended president had also taken out unauthorized loans from state banks to make the federal budget deficit look better than it really was as she campaigned for re-election in 2014.

Brazilian acting President Michel Temer gestures during the inauguration ceremony of the presidents of three Brazilian public banks and Petrobras at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, on June 1, 2016. (AFP Photo)

Rousseff claims such tactics were common practice under previous administrations, and calls the impeachment procedure a masked coup triggered by the sprawling Petrobras scandal, implicating members of the main political parties in the country.

Her allies point out that many of the lawmakers accusing her of fiscal wrongdoings are themselves under legal investigation for far more serious cases of fraud and corruption related to the state-owned oil company.

Meanwhile, Rousseff, who was suspended from office on May 12, is refusing to attend the opening ceremony on Friday of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Her political rival, Michel Temer, who is serving as interim president, will oversee the opening ceremony of the historic event.

The 81-member Senate will vote next week on the likely verdict to proceed with Rousseff's impeachment trial.

Then a final and decisive session in the full Senate is scheduled for August 29, a week after the Olympics close, when a two-thirds majority is required to oust the leftist president once and for all.

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