Ruling on Rousseff and Temer's 2014 campaign funding possible by June

Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes of Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) on Wednesday (April 5) said a final ruling on the dispute filed against Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer's 2014 re-election could be reached by the end of the first half of this year. He believes the case could be solved relatively soon even if court members eventually put it on hold by asking to examine the records.

“We'll get going with all this timeline, the testimonies, a new deadline for closing arguments, then we pick up again. We might even be through with it as early as this semester,” he said.

The trial began Tuesday (4) but was put off because a majority of justices upheld a request from former president Dilma Rousseff's counsel to extend the defense deadline by five days. It is expected to resume in the last week of April.

The case

In December 2014, the finances of the 2014 re-election campaign of then-president Dilma Rousseff and her deputy Michel Temer were approved with reservations by the full bench of the electoral court. But the approval was challenged by the PSDB, the party of the candidate defeated in the run-off (Aécio Neves). It claimed Rousseff was covering up illegal campaign funding according to allegations that emerged from the “Car Wash” corruption investigation. The TSE ruled the campaign accounts of Rousseff and her running mate Temer should be examined as one single process.

Rousseff's defense denied any wrongdoing, maintaining the campaign process had been fully documented and overseen. Temer's lawyers also denied any involvement of his party with illegal campaign payments.

Translated by Mayra Borges