Brasilia: A Congressional committee recommended impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, setting the stage for a crucial vote in the Lower House to decide whether she should face trial.
The committee voted 38 to 27 in favor of Rousseff’s ouster. Both sides yelled slogans and waved placards as the vote was completed after hours of bad-tempered debate.
The decision was non-binding. However, it was a symbolically important as a preview of the decisive battle in the full lower chamber expected on Sunday or the following Monday.
In closing comments, Paulo Abi Ackel, from the opposition PSDB party, called for impeachment of a president he branded “inept, incapable, isolated.” But Henrique Fontana, from Rousseff's Workers’ Party, urged a vote “against the coup.”
In the Chamber of Deputies, a two-thirds majority 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. Anything less would torpedo the procedure.
Impeachment released by mistaken
Brazil’s vice president who would take over if Dilma Rousseff is impeached accidentally released the speech he’d give to the nation if she were forced to stand aside, reports said.
The appearance online of the 14-minute speech in which Vice President Michel Temer addresses “the Brazilian people” was immediately interpreted by Rousseff supporters. Temer’s office told Folha newspaper that the VP, who turned on Rousseff to become an opposition leader, was just practicing “on his cell phone and it was sent by accident.”
