Brazil’s Rousseff Fights Against Impeachment
KABUL: (MEP) Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has said Monday that she will not step down from the presidency despite a vote by Brazil’s lower house to impeach her. Comparing the Sunday vote to a coup, she said she is “outraged” by a vote in Congress to authorise impeachment proceedings against her.
”I am outraged by the decision,” Rousseff told a news conference carried live on television.
The 68-year-old leftist leader was in a combative mood in her public response since the lower house of Congress overwhelmingly voted late Sunday to send her case to the Senate.
In an emotional first public response on Monday, Rousseff said she would “continue to fight” for her political survival and that there was no legal basis for any impeachment.
Embattled Rousseff has lashed out at the parliament for voting in favor of starting her impeachment proceedings. She branded the decision as a coup. Rousseff said that the lawmakers have been unable to produce any evidence that she committed an impeachable crime.
“Today, above all, I feel injustice,” she said according to CNN, arguing that other politicians and presidents before her had participated in the same acts that they are accusing her of committing illegally. “I will fight, like I have always done in my life. … I am sure that we will have the opportunity to defend ourselves in the Senate.”
Rousseff stands accused of a budgetary sleight of hand employed by many elected officials in Brazil: delaying payments to state lenders in order to artificially lower the budget deficit to boost her reelection bid in 2014.
