Brazil's political crisis shows no sign of abating as President Dilma Rousseff and her Workers' Party (WP) signalled they are determined to continuing fighting against efforts to remove her from power.
Her grip on office is now left hanging by a thread after the lower house of congress voted by 367 to 137 on Sunday night to send her for trial before the senate over accusations that she broke budgetary laws.
In the immediate aftermath of the overwhelming defeat in which her opponents easily mustered the two-thirds majority required to open impeachment proceedings, Ms Rousseff’s attorney general, José Eduardo Cardozo, said the vote amounted to a “coup” and that the president “would not bend”.
Recalling her resistance against the country’s last military dictatorship, he predicted she would “fight until the end”.
Mr Rousseff was expected to make her own public statement on the congress's decision yesterday evening. The 68-year- old economist has seen her ability to command Latin America's biggest country undermined by her party's involvement in a giant corruption scandal in state oil giant Petrobras and the economy's worst recession in decades.
Senate vote
Mr Cardozo said the lower house’s decision could still be reversed in the senate where her formal removal also requires a two-thirds majority.
The lower house was due to send the impeachment motion to the senate yesterday.
Once it is read in the upper house, senators will have up to 10 sessions to vote on whether to accept it.
Surveys show the opposition already has the votes it needs to get a trial under way, meaning by May 12th the president could be suspended from her position for up to six months while her future is decided by the 81 senators.
Ms Rousseff's estranged vice-president Michel Temer was already reported to be engaged in talks on the shape of a new government. However, WP leaders have promised to lead popular resistance against a politician whose rejection ratings are almost as high as the president's and who is facing possible investigation for his role in the Petrobras scandal.
"If he assumes the presidency Temer will lack any legitimacy. He will not last three months," said WP senator Lindbergh Farias, who suggested new presidential elections as a possible exit from the crisis.
Inquiry testimony
WP representatives also warned that efforts by the vice- president to draw up a new cabinet from among the opposition parties could be undermined by the testimony being provided by
Marcelo Odebrecht
, the owner of Brazil’s biggest construction conglomerate, as part of the Petrobras inquiry.
"The latest information we have is that his testimony and that of other executives will be much more damaging for the opposition parties than for us," said WP deputy Givaldo Vieira.
Also calling for new elections was former WP minister and environmental campaigner Marina Silva, who quit the party in 2009 after clashing with Ms Rousseff. Polls show she is one of the favourites to win any new elections.
She defended Sunday’s vote but called on the country’s electoral court to cancel the mandate of both Ms Rousseff and Mr Temer given the indications their winning presidential ticket in 2014 was illegally financed by money looted from Petrobras.
