Brazil’s Temer faces brewing ‘mutiny’ amid graft scandal

Bloomberg

Brazil’s President Michel Temer is struggling to put down a rebel movement by legislators in his own party who are discussing his replacement after damaging graft allegations surfaced.
The best solution to remove Temer, who is being investigated by the prosecutor-general on corruption and cover-up charges, is for the top electoral court to annul the 2014 election result in which he shared a ticket with ousted President Dilma Rousseff, according to half a dozen legislators from his ruling PMDB party who spoke to Bloomberg News. The court will retake the case on alleged illegal campaign financing on June 6.
In an effort to squash the dissidents, Temer called an emergency meeting with PMDB Senators on Wednesday morning, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named. Separately, the largest member in Temer’s allied base, the PSDB, will meet hours later to discuss its future in the coalition.
The president’s press office wasn’t immediately able to comment, though the meeting with PMDB Senators is on Temer’s official agenda.
The nation was rocked last week by news of a Supreme Court-authorized probe into Temer on allegations of passive corruption and obstruction of justice, only days before Congress had planned to vote on a pension bill considered central to the administration’s efforts to fix the country’s depleted public coffers and pull its economy out of recession.
Some of the dissident lawmakers told Bloomberg News that they favor a negotiated resignation in which Temer agrees to not stall possible court decisions against him with appeals. Yet the 76 year-old career politician refuses to budge, saying charges against him were trumped up and the evidence doctored.