Dilma’s Impeachment: Trial could end in August
May 26, 2016, 5:32 am

Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff [2nd from right] says the events in Brazil leading to her suspension are “clearly” a “coup” [Image: PT Brasil]

“The impeachment effort against suspended President Dilma Rousseff may reach a final decision in August, according to a work schedule presented Wednesday by Senator Antonio Anastasia, rapporteur of the current Procedural Commission for the Impeachment,” the agency said.

The schedule includes Rousseff’s defense, testimony from witnesses and an expert, and the gathering of documents.

“June 20 is the date fixed for Rousseff’s interrogation before the commission,” the agency said, adding “she may choose to attend or be represented by her counsel.”

Anastasia is to read his final report, “which could either recommend or oppose Rousseff’s removal” to the commission on July 25, and it would be voted on in two days.

On Aug. 1 or Aug. 2, congress would vote on the commission’s findings via a simple majority vote of “half of all senators attending plus one.”

“After the report is voted on in the full Senate, the process moves to its last ballot,” under the supervision of Supreme Court chief Ricardo Lewandowski.

That ballot marks “the last stage of the proceedings, and two-thirds of the votes are required to permanently unseat the president — 54 of the total 81 senators,” the agency said.

Rousseff is facing the impeachment trial on charges of breaking budget rules. She vigorously denied wrongdoing.

Rousseff said last week that the interim government is causing “enormous damage” to the country’s social safety system.

In an interview with web users on social networking site Facebook, Rousseff, accompanied by former Social Welfare Minister Carlos Gabas, criticized the measures of Michel Temer’s interim government.

“They got rid of the Social Welfare Ministry. This is absurd. It is part of the heritage of Brazilian workers,” said Rousseff.

In his first week in office Temer has merged the Social Welfare Ministry with the Finance Ministry.

“It is not known what will happen with the social welfare agencies that we modernized to increase services over the past few years. However, the interim minister said that the agencies are vacant spaces. Is he going to close the agencies? That is absurd,” said Rousseff.

On May 13, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said that the reform “is an evident necessity,” and social security has to be “self-supporting in the long term and it needs to have solvency from the government.”

As one of the main measures for the reform, Meirelles proposed establishing a minimum retirement age for the National Institute for Social Security.

The interim government had last week invited unions to a meeting to discuss reforming Brazil’s generous pension system, something that analysts say is necessary to begin pulling Brazil out of its worst recession since the 1930s. In Brazil, many public workers can retire by their early 50s.

However, the meeting was blocked by two of Brazil’s biggest unions, which cover about 42 per cent of the nation’s 9 million unionized workers.

Temer is also seeking constitutional change to limit increases in public spending as part of a series of measures to curb a record fiscal deficit and regain investor confidence.

The proposed constitutional amendment would reduce the growth of mandatory health and education spending, new Finance Minister  Henrique Meirelles said on Tuesday. There would be a review of government subsidies and taxes could be raised temporarily, he added.

TBP and Agencies

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