Final Phase of Rousseff’s Impeachment Trial to Start in Brazil

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – With the impending start of the final phase of her impeachment trial on Thursday, suspended Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, on Tuesday continued to vow to fight until the last minute what she calls a ‘coup’ of her government.

“You can be sure that this is a process that we have all the conditions to absorb and overcome. For this, we have to be mobilized. I fought my whole life, I have fought against torture, I fought against cancer and I will fight any injustice,” said the first Brazilian woman to be elected president of the largest country in Latin America.

Speaking in São Paulo the suspended leader said that she is not only fighting for her presidency, but for democracy. “One of the things we learn from all that happened is that democracy is not guaranteed. Democracy is a systematic achievement and we must be careful not to lose what we have gained,” she said.

Both the defense and the accusation are expected to once again to make their case, this time in front of the entire Senate body. Rousseff is scheduled to go before the Senate on Monday, August 29th and try to defend her actions. She has been accused of borrowing money from state-owned banks to pay for social programs but not including these ‘loans’ in the federal accounting results.

Rousseff has reiterated her innocence noting that former presidents executed similar fiscal practices, and that this process in fact is a political trial to remove her from office.

As a last ditch effort, Rousseff’s attorneys requested that Brazil’s Supreme Court annul the Senate decision to start impeachment proceedings, stating that procedures adopted violated her rights.

The Supreme Court rejected the request on Tuesday and gave the go-ahead for the trial to start later on this week.