BRASILIA, (Reuters) – President Dilma Rousseff’s opponents within her main coalition partner, the fractious Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), are losing hope that they can impeach the leftist leader and replace her with their man, Vice President Michel Temer.
A Supreme Court ruling last month that expanded the authority of the Senate, where she has a more solid backing, and reduced the clout of lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha, her arch enemy who triggered the impeachment process, has weakened the bid by opposition parties to unseat Rousseff.
Her critics accuse Rousseff of manipulating government accounts to boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign.
But in recent weeks, a growing consensus has emerged in Brazil’s political establishment that the evidence against Rousseff is too flimsy to justify impeachment.
Her government is confident it has more than the one third of votes she needs in each chamber to block impeachment.
“The momentum for impeachment has lost force, yes, due to the brutal interference of the Supreme Court in a legislative matter,” said Darcisio Perondi, a PMDB congressman, who believes Rousseff must be ousted if Brazil is to recover from its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Rousseff’s fiercest critics inside the PMDB are now focusing their efforts on a party convention in March, where they will push to leave the ruling coalition. They hope that will bring her government down just over a year into her second term.
Popular frustration with Rousseff has been fueled by the brutal contraction in South America’s largest economy and a massive corruption scandal at state-run companies.
But, while Rousseff’s approval ratings are near record lows, anti-government demonstrations since the start of impeachment proceedings last month have so far failed to match the scale of protests in 2013 and early last year, that drew hundreds of thousands onto the streets.
Perondi said the fight is now on to break with the Rousseff administration at the convention in the first half of March.
“If we stay, we will be telling the country we do not want change and we will go down with Rousseff’s Workers’ Party that will be badly defeated in municipal elections in October,” he said.
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The PMDB, which controls both chambers of Congress, has six cabinet ministries plus the vice presidency and party barons are split over whether to relinquish power so far ahead of the 2018 presidential race when it plans to field its own candidate.
“I don’t see the party leaving the government in March,” said a senior PMDB official, who requested anonymity because the matter is so sensitive within the party. “The convention will decide on a gradual exit, preparing for a PMDB candidacy in 2018.”
