BRASILIA, (Reuters) – President Dilma Rousseff said yesterday she will not resign in Brazil’s worst political crisis in two decades, calling an opposition move to impeach her a “coup d’etat” against democratic rule because she had committed no crime.
Rousseff urged Brazil’s Supreme Court to remain impartial in the crisis that has threatened to topple her government as opponents seek her impeachment in Congress amid a widespread corruption scandal that has reached her inner circle.
“I will never resign under any circumstances,” the embattled president said in a speech to legal experts. “I have committed no crime that would warrant shortening my term.”
The head of the Brazilian Senate echoed Rousseff’s position on impeachment after a meeting with her predecessor and political mentor, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, as the pair work hand in hand to shore up a crumbling coalition.
Opposition parties have launched impeachment proceedings against Rousseff for allegedly manipulating government accounts to allow her government to spend more in the run-up to her 2014 re-election. The president could be suspended as soon as May if her supporters do not block impeachment in the lower house.
Recent corruption allegations and huge anti-government street protests have raised the odds of Rousseff being impeached, ending 13 years of leftist Workers’ Party rule.
With her popularity at rock bottom due to a snowballing graft scandal and the worst recession in a generation, the political survival of Brazil’s first female president depends largely on her main coalition partner, the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB).
Growing numbers of lawmakers in the fractious PMDB want the party to break with her government, a decision that could be taken at a March 29 executive committee meeting. The party may hold the deciding votes on impeachment, which would put Vice President Michel Temer, leader of the PMDB, in the presidential seat.
Party officials have denied Brazilian media reports that Temer is already preparing a post-Rousseff government and has begun talks with opposition leaders to secure their backing.
