Senate debate on Rousseff impeachment runs until early hours of Wednesday
Ricardo Lewandowski, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who is presiding over the impeachment trial of President Dilma Rousseff, has kept his promise of not adjourning the session until the last senator who had yielded floor time concluded his address.
In total, 63 senators spoke at this stage of the trial, which started around 2:30pm yesterday (Aug. 30) and wound up shortly after 2:30am. In their speeches, 44 senators declared they were going to vote for Rousseff's impeachment, 18 said they would vote against it, and one did not state his position. The session, which started with the closing statements of the defense and the prosecution, lasted nearly 17 hours in total.
A majority of the senators in the parties that conveyed pro-impeachment views support the interim government of acting President Michel Temer, whereas leftist parties took anti-impeachment stances.
Within some of the parties, however, there were mixed views. In the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), for example, Bahia Senator Lídice da Mata called the proceedings a “coup”, while Sergipe's Antônio Carlos Valadares said he was convinced that the president had “abused her political power and broken budget laws, defied the authority of the Congress, and violated the Constitution, destabilizing fiscal accountability policy.”
Some of the senators did not explicitly state their position on impeachment. That was the case of Senator Acir Gurgacz, who drafted the report on Rousseff's government accounts of 2014 in the Joint Committee on Budget recommending approval with reservations. In his address, Gurgacz evaded commenting on Rousseff's alleged impeachable crimes and said there are other issues that needed to be discussed in the country.
The only former president to have been ousted in a similar impeachment case, Alagoas Senator Fernando Collor de Mello, said he was going to vote to impeach Rousseff.
The last senator to speak, taking the floor in the early hours of Wednesday (Aug. 31), was PSB Senator Romário from Rio de Janeiro, a former star in Brazil's national football team. He said he was favorable to permanently removing Rousseff from office.
Voting
After Romário's speech, Justice Lewandowski announced that the session was going to resume at 11am Wednesday (31) for a final vote on the impeachment of suspended President Dilma Rousseff. At least 54 votes out of a total 81 senators are required to impeach the president and permanently remove her from office.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Senate debate on Rousseff impeachment runs until early hours of Wednesday
