BRASILIA: Embattled President Dilma Rousseff
greeted the Olympic flame in Brazil on Tuesday (May 3), promising not to
allow a raging political crisis, which could see her suspended within
days, to spoil the Rio Games.
"We are experiencing political instability. We
are going through a very difficult period, truly critical in the
country's history and in the history of democracy," Rousseff said in the
capital Brasilia.
However, "Brazil will provide the very best
reception for athletes and foreign visitors because we have created the
conditions for this."
The flame, which arrived in a small lantern
from the ancient Greek site of Olympia, via Switzerland, was transferred
to Brazil's Olympic torch featuring waves of tropical colours.
The route of the Olympic Torch relay. (AFP Photo)
The torch will now be carried in a relay by
12,000 people through 329 cities, ending in Rio's Maracana stadium on
Aug 5 for the opening ceremony.
Air Force jets roared overhead in a clear blue
sky to write "Rio 2016" and the five Olympic rings in their vapour
trails. Then there were cheers as the first relay runner, double Olympic
gold winning women's volleyball captain Fabiana Claudino, set off.
Twelve-year-old Syrian refugee Hanan Daqqah,
who arrived in Brazil's biggest city Sao Paulo with her family in 2015,
was also among the 10 first torch bearers.
IMPEACHMENT CRISIS
But political turmoil overshadowed the ceremony ahead of South America's first ever Olympics.
Rousseff will be suspended from office for six
months next week if the Senate votes on May 11 or 12 to open an
impeachment trial, meaning that Tuesday could have been one of her final
major public events as president.
She is accused of illegally manipulating
government accounts but says she is the victim of a coup mounted by her
vice president, Michel Temer, who would replace here if she is
suspended.
In a brief speech at the torch-lighting
ceremony, Rousseff said the relay would put Brazil's beauty on display,
but she also laced her comments with references to her fight for
political survival.
"I am certain that a country whose people know
how to fight for their rights and to protect their democracy is a
country where the Olympics will have great success in the coming
months," she said.
A swarm of police jogged alongside the first
torch runners, possibly to separate them from protesters in the crowd
who held up banners, including one reading "No to the coup."
LAST DAYS IN OFFICE?
The impeachment trial and a definitive Senate
vote on Rousseff's fate could take months, during which time the
68-year-old will be on half pay, still living at the presidential
residence, although ejected from the executive offices.
If she is not cleared, Temer would stay in power until the next scheduled elections in 2018.
Rousseff has vowed to "fight to the end." She
hopes to persuade senators that the accounting tricks, which she
allegedly used to mask the depth of Brazil's economic crisis, do not
amount to an impeachable offense. According to Rousseff, the charges are
trumped up by her political enemies.
Given the makeup of the Senate, a simple
majority vote to suspend her next week looks almost certain. However, a
two-thirds majority is needed to remove her completely from office,
making the final outcome harder to predict.
Rousseff, a one-time Marxist guerrilla who was
tortured by the military dictatorship in the 1970s, has all but lost
the ability to govern in recent months. Even if she survived
impeachment, she would have trouble regaining authority.
However, her Workers' Party, which has
dominated and transformed the country since 2003, is still fighting to
prevent impeachment from turning into a nationwide shift to the right.
Rousseff's mentor and presidential
predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, hopes to run for president again
in 2018 - or even sooner in special snap elections that many in Brazil
want to happen this year.
Polls show Lula would be one of several frontrunners, trouncing the unpopular Temer.
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