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A man is arrested during a demonstration against the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in front of the National Congress in Brasilia, May 11, 2016. Photo: Andressa Anholete/AFP/Getty Images -
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff wipes her face during the opening ceremony of the 4th National Conference on Politics for Women, in Brasilia, May 10, 2016. Photo: Ricardo Botelho/Brazil Photo Press/LatinContent/Getty Images
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UPDATE: 12:15 a.m. EDT
— The latest count shows that 35 senators, including a former minister
in President Dilma Rousseff’s government, have indicated they will vote
against her in the impeachment trial, the Guardian reported.
Meanwhile, 11 senators have said they will
vote against the impeachment trial, and one senator, former President
Fernando Collor de Mello — he was himself impeached in 1992 — did not
specify how he would vote.
UPDATE: 11 p.m. EDT —
At the most recent tally, 29 senators have said they will vote in favor
of impeaching Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, and nine have said
they will oppose impeachment, Britain's the Guardian reported. Forty-one votes will be needed for the impeachment to pass.
The vote is to take place after 71 senators
(of the 81 total) have an opportunity to speak. So far, about 40
senators have spoken, the Guardian reported.
UPDATE: 10:30 p.m. EDT —
More than 12 hours after impeachment proceedings began in Brazil's
capital against President Dilma Rousseff, only about half of the 70
senators scheduled to speak before a vote is finalized have used their
allotted 15 minutes at the podium.
More than half of the 41 senators needed to
impeach the president have said they’re committed to doing so, while
only five senators have come out against impeachment, according to local
media reports. Epoca magazine posted an image of Rousseff and Jaques
Wagner, former defense minister, watching pro-Rousseff rallies taking
place on the streets outside the Senate building that have led to
clashes with security forces.
Several people have been treated for pepper
spray inhalation, prompting leftist lawmakers to condemn what they
claimed was an excessive use of force against supporters of the
president.
UPDATE: 7:30 p.m. EDT – Brazil's
President Dilma Rousseff will address the nation at 10 a.m. local time
Thursday and release a video to social media shortly thereafter, U.S.
radio network NPR reported, citing information from the president’s
press office.
With more than 40 senators still lined up to
deliver their 15-minute speeches for or against the president’s ouster,
the final vote might not be announced until around 6 a.m. Thursday local
time.
UPDATE: 6:15 p.m. EDT – The
leader of Brazil’s Senate, Renan Calheiros, called for a pause in floor
speeches during Tuesday’s vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff for
violating the country’s budgetary laws. Pro-impeachment lawmakers had
nearly half the 41 votes needed to boot the former Energy Minister from
office.
Brazil's
Senate President Renan Calheiros is seen during a debate on suspending
and impeaching President Dilma Rousseff, in Brasilia, Wednesday, May 11,
2016. Photo: Evaristo SA/AFP/Getty Images
Lawmakers are lined up for their 15 minutes of
allotted time to speak. With more that 40 speeches left to go it could
take hours for the proceedings to end.
Rousseff is not without allies, however.
Workers’ Party Sen. Jorge Viana Acre said during his allotted time at
the podium that the impeachment proceedings: “throws the votes of
millions of Brazilians in the trash!”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that
Rousseff has cleared out her office and moved her belongings to the
presidential residence. Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo said the
move occurred Tuesday amid the impeachment proceedings that were
expected to see the president ousted in a matter of hours.
As night descended in Brasilia, security forces were reportedly firing tear gas at pro- Rousseff supporters.
Rousseff is accused of using accounting tricks
in managing the country’s budget to maintain her social spending
programs benefitting the country’s poor. Rousseff, who faces no criminal
charges, maintains that previous presidents engaged in the same
accounting practices. But Rousseff’s government has been tainted by a
massive graft scandal at Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras oil company and a
deep economic recession linked to global plunge in commodious the
country’s finances depend upon.
Rousseff has a lot of support among Brazil’s poor for her efforts to maintain social programs the benefit them.
UPDATE: 2:20 p.m. EDT — In
what could be a telling sign, the first 10 of the expected 68 Brazilian
senators to testify ahead of a vote to determine the fate of President
Dilma Rousseff have argued for the country's leader to be impeached,
according to a tweet from a Brazil-based journalist.
Prior to the start of the debate, two senators unsuccessfully appealed for the proceedings to be postponed, the Guardian reported.
That was followed by the Supreme Court denying Rousseff's appeal to
stop the vote, which is expected to happen Wednesday night around 10
p.m. EDT.
UPDATE: 1:15 p.m. EDT — Brazil
President Dilma Rousseff is expected to "address the nation" after the
Senate votes in favor of or against impeaching her, according to a tweet
from a local journalist.
Rousseff's impeachment is looking more and
more like a reality, according to Humberto Costa, the leader of the
Workers Party in the Brazilian Senate. Costa tweeted the "process of impeachment" is a "scandal" within itself, the Guardian reported.
“There are no other paths for us but opposition,” Costa reportedly told a local TV station.
UPDATE: 12:16 p.m. EDT — Brazil's supreme court has rejected an appeal to end a vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff over allegations of corruption, the Guardian reported.
The appeal by Rousseff's political allies was largely seen as a
last-ditch effort, and it would appear that there is now nothing
preventing an impeachment vote from moving forward.
Members
of Brazil's Senate, in favor and against the impeachment of President
Dilma Rousseff, participate in the debate leading up to the voting in
Brasilia, Brazil, May 11, 2016. Photo: REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
The "petition to issue a stay suspending the
process" was denied by Justice Teori Zavascki, a spokesman for the
Brazilian supreme court told Agence France-Presse.
UPDATE: 11:36 a.m. EDT — The
Brazilian Senate's debate over President Dilma Rousseff's fate got off
to a bad, if not a tardy start, according to one presiding official. The
proceedings began about an hour late, the BBC reported.
"There won't be changes; the session will be conducted with absolute normality," said Senate President Renan Calheiros. "Any delay won't be good for Brazil."
Before the first session ended Wednesday, the Guardian reported that Senator Ataides Oliveira took the podium to make his case for impeaching Rousseff, who stands accused
of political and financial malfeasance and could be suspended for up to
six months if she is impeached. If she is put on trial and convicted,
she would be removed from the presidency indefinitely.
UPDATE: 9:30 a.m. EDT — The
Brazilian Senate began a session Wednesday morning that could decide
the fate of President Dilma Rousseff. The Senate started what
was expected to be a long debate that would culminate in a vote deciding
if Rousseff will face an impeachment trial.
The session began with a lengthy speech by the chamber’s president, Renan Calheiros, according to the Guardian.
Original story:
The Brazilian Senate is slated Wednesday to
hold a crucial vote on the fate of embattled President Dilma Rousseff,
deciding if she should face an impeachment trial that could suspend her
for up to six months. Rousseff made an eleventh hour pitch Tuesday night
to the Supreme Court, asking it to stop the impeachment process
for alleged bias and irregularities, but similar petitions have failed in the past.
The vote Wednesday is scheduled the day after the speaker of the lower house of Congress, Waldir Maranhao, walked back
a decision to annul that body's impeachment proceedings. Maranhao did
not specify why he reversed his decision to stop the impeachment
procedures, which itself was a shocking announcement Monday. Before the
U-turn, he had said there were procedural flaws in the April 17 lower
chamber decision that initially accepted the impeachment charges against
Rousseff. Senate President Renan Calheiros said Monday that Maranhao's
decision to annul the proceedings was "playing with democracy."
If a simple majority of the Senate votes to
put the president on trial Wednesday, then Rousseff would be suspended
from office Thursday, which would put Vice President Michel Temer in
charge during the trial. The suspension could last up to six
months. Should Rousseff be convicted and removed indefinitely, the vice
president would remain in the position until elections in 2018,
according to Reuters.
The efforts to remove Rousseff from office stem from allegations that she broke budgetary laws, borrowing
money from state financial institutions to help cover up a growing
deficit ahead of the country's 2014 election. Rousseff's opponents are
convinced they have the 41 votes necessary to launch the trial and
believe they will also be able to garner two-thirds support to
remove the president at the end of a potential trial.
The impeachment crisis comes a time of wide-ranging chaos for Brazil. The South American nation is mired in a crippling recession, it's contending with the Zika virus and, all the while, it's desperately attempting to finish preparations for August's Rio Olympics.
The important Senate vote is scheduled to take place at about 7 p.m. EDT. You can watch a live stream of the Senate's vote here or over at the upper chamber's YouTube channel here. The video feed is also embedded below:
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