Brazil’s Rousseff urges pact with opponents to avoid impeachment
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has called for a “grand pact” with opponents to allow her to stay in power, as opposition lawmakers are pushing forward an impeachment bid against her.
“Brazil has already overcome difficult moments by making pacts,” she said in the capital, Brasilia, on Thursday. She said she will support “absolutely necessary political reforms” that provide a condition for her to stay in power. “That is the pact I’m looking for.”
Rousseff is increasingly under fire over allegations that she doctored government accounts to affect public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign.
A parliamentary commission found on Wednesday that her impeachment case should go ahead. The initial finding, however, will be followed by a vote in the full commission on Monday.
The lower house of Brazil’s congress will vote on the impeachment bid on April 18. If it is passed in the lower house, Rousseff will be suspended for up to six months while facing trial in the Senate. Vice President Michel Temer would replace her as acting president in the meantime.
Rousseff has repeatedly accused the opposition of mounting a coup attempt through the impeachment bid.
The Brazilian president also faces criticism over a graft scandal at the state oil company Petrobras, where she was the manager before taking office as president in 2010. Rousseff recently appointed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who is himself implicated in the corruption case — as a cabinet minister, in a move seen by opponents as an attempt to grant him immunity from prosecution.
On Thursday, Brazil’s Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot recommended that the Supreme Court block the appointment of Lula as cabinet minister.
The prosecutor said the appointment was planned to disrupt an investigation into corruption charges against Lula.
A Supreme Court judge suspended Lula’s appointment on March 18, saying it was illegal.
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