- Title: BRAZIL-ROUSSEFF Brazil's Rousseff gains time to avert impeachment
- Date: 13th October 2015
- Summary: BRASILIA, BRAZIL (FILE - 2015) (REUTERS) ROUSSEFF ARRIVING ON OPEN TOP CAR FOR SWEARING IN CEREMONY AFTER REELECTION ROUSSEFF PUTTING ON THE PRESIDENTIAL SASH
- Embargoed: 28th October 2015 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Brazil
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA8GDYULEPFV3U73F50COPPT8S8
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
A Brazilian Supreme Court injunction on Tuesday (October 13) resulted in President Dilma Rousseff gaining more time to muster votes in Congress to try and block efforts to impeach her on charges of manipulating government accounts.
Opposition parties in the South American country had planned to force a vote in the lower house that could have opened proceedings to impeach the president as early as this week.
But a Supreme Court justice suspended the manoeuvre with an injunction sought by lawmakers of the ruling left-leaning, Workers' Party (PT).
The decision gives the president some extra time to line up her supporters in Congress, although the speaker of the lower house Eduardo Cunha insisted on Tuesday he would continue to review impeachment requests despite the injunction.
Cunha, a former ally of Rousseff's who recently broke away and joined the opposition, insisted any decision regarding a possible impeachment would not be politically motivated.
"My decision has to be grounded in the laws. It has to be based on what is said in the constitution, the rules. I won't make a decision if I can't explain the motivations (behind) the decision to all of you. So I won't do anything based on a purely personal (motives) or of political nature, I will do it legal fashion," Cunha said.
Cunha has already shelved four impeachment requests. He still has to decide on eight others as problems for Rousseff mount.
The requests include one that is seen as the most serious challenge to Rousseff and alleges she doctored government accounts to allow for unsanctioned spending in the run-up to her re-election a year ago.
The president's aides fear Cunha could try to speed up the impeachment process because he is under pressure to resign as speaker following discovery of Swiss bank accounts in connection with corruption charges against him.
If Cunha accepts one of the petitions, a parliamentary commission with representatives of all parties would analyse it and put it to a lower house vote. It would need two-thirds support to open an impeachment trial in the Senate.
Rousseff's spokesman, Edinho Silva said the opposition lacked a legal basis to impeach the president.
"Brazil can't resolve its political issues with an institutional rupture. Impeachment is only justified if it has a legal basis. There isn't a legal basis to take these kinds of measures," Silva said.
Silva also called on Congress not to paralyse the nation with a presidential impeachment at a time when it needs to restore economic growth.
"We can't allow the country to go into paralysis because of a political determination defending the impeachment process. We can't harm the Brazilian people with the halting of important measures - the return to economic growth, the return to our wealth distribution projects, to build a country with more opportunities - in order to politicise a legal matter," he said.
For now, Rousseff appears to have enough votes to block impeachment, but that could change as Brazil's political crisis deepens.
Brazil's worst recession in 25 years and a huge corruption scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras have pushed Rousseff's approval ratings into single digits and put her political survival at risk.
Rousseff has yet to find herself directly implicated in the Petrobras scandal, but it has ensnared members of her PT party.
Nine months into her second term, polls show two thirds of Brazilians want to see her impeached. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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