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Brazil / AfP
An impeachment commission was due to vote on the fate of Brazilian President DilmaRousseff ahead of a vote by the lower house of Congress to decide whether she should go to trial.
Bad-tempered debate, interrupted by heckling and chanting, kicked off in the commission in Brasilia while security forces mounted a huge operation outside to separate rival demonstrators expected in the capital later this week.
The commission was due to vote soon. The room overflowed with journalists and politicians, most of whom displayed placards reading alternately “Time for impeachment” or “Impeachment without a crime is a coup.” Paulo Pimenta, a deputy with Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, told AFP that the president would lose the commission vote by a margin of about 35-29.
However, the commission vote is non-binding, so focus is concentrated on the crucial lower house vote expected either April 17 or 18. A two-thirds majority in the lower house would send Rousseff’s case to the Senate, which would then have the power to put her on trial and ultimately drive her from office.
Rousseff, accused of fiddling accounts to mask the dire state of the government budget during her 2014 re-election, is fighting desperately to ensure enough support among deputies to stop the process. The latest survey of the 513 deputies in the lower house by Estadao daily on Monday showed 292 in favor, still short of the 342 needed to carry the motion. The count showed 115 opposing impeachment, with 172 required to impose a defeat.
That left the result in the hands of the 106 deputies still undecided or not stating a position.
With Latin America’s biggest country gripped by recession, political paralysis and a vast corruption scandal, the stakes are huge and passions on both sides intense. A barricade was erected along the Esplanade of Ministries in the capital Brasilia to separate opposing protesters that police expect could number as many as 300,000 during the lower house vote.