{"id":2250,"date":"2016-09-01T19:11:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T19:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=2250"},"modified":"2016-09-01T19:11:14","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T19:11:14","slug":"brazils-senate-removes-president-rousseff-from-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2016\/09\/01\/brazils-senate-removes-president-rousseff-from-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s Senate removes President Rousseff from office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rio \u2014 After an emotionally charged, late-night debate, the Brazilian Senate voted Wednesday to remove suspended President Dilma Rousseff from office for fiscal irregularities, a move she said amounted to an illegal coup.
\nThe 61-20 vote capped a year-long power struggle between Rousseff\u2019s long-governing leftist government and opposition senators and comes less than two weeks after the Rio Olympics, which highlighted Brazil but also put the country\u2019s economic and political woes on international display.<\/span>The Senate suspended Rousseff in May on charges that she used illegal budgetary maneuvers to hide the extent of the country\u2019s financial problems. Brazil\u2019s once-booming economy slumped into a deep recession after a global slowdown sent prices plummeting for commodities it exports to the world.
\nA raucous and emotional impeachment hearing started last Thursday. Rousseff spoke Monday to defend herself and underwent harsh questioning from the senators for nearly 14 hours.
\nOpponents of the 68-year-old Rousseff, a former guerrilla fighter, charged that she broke the law in manipulating the government budget to preserve popular social programs that bolstered her re-election in 2014.
\nShe denied doing anything illegal, saying previous presidents routinely made similar fund transfers. \u201cI did not commit the crimes that I am arbitrarily and unjustly accused of,\u201d she said Monday, adding that \u201cwe are one step away from a real coup d\u2019etat.\u201d
\nShe argued that she was forced to make tough choices on the budget in the face of falling revenues and a refusal by opponents in Congress to work with her. \u201cI know I will be judged, but my conscience is clear. I did not commit a crime,\u201d Rousseff told senators in a 30-minute address.
\nOn Tuesday, Janaina Paschoal, the lawyer leading the case against Rousseff, said she had committed fraud when breaking fiscal laws.
\nIn calling for her dismissal, Miguel Reale Junior, a former minister of justice who prosecuted the case, said removal of the president \u201cwill mark the beginning of a new era\u201d for Brazil.
\nMost of the senators making statements blamed her for Brazil\u2019s recession, saying she ignored signs of a slowdown.
\n\u201cThe most perverse consequence of the actions of the president is that 12 million are unemployed, 5 million since she was re-elected,\u201d said Sen. Aecio Neves, who narrowly lost the presidential election to Rousseff in 2014.
\nRousseff had sharp words for her apparent successor, Temer, who is more conservative and represents a different party. She called him a \u201cusurper\u201d who \u2014 when he became interim president in May \u2014 named a Cabinet of all white men in a country that is more than 50% non-white. Temer\u2019s Cabinet has been roundly criticized for its lack of diversity, and three ministers were forced to step down within a month of taking office because of corruption allegations.
\nRousseff asserted that impeachment was the price she paid for refusing to quash a wide-ranging government investigation into a political bribery scandal involving the state oil company, Petrobras. She said corrupt lawmakers linked to the scheme conspired to oust her to derail the investigation into billions in kickbacks at the oil giant.
\nRousseff said it was \u201can irony of history\u201d that she was being judged for crimes she did not commit by people accused of serious crimes.
\nTens of thousands of supporters demonstrated on Rousseff\u2019s behalf when she was first suspended, but the size of the crowds have been small in the past week, perhaps because her backers realize her ouster was assured.
\nRousseff faced a long and difficult road to the top of Brazil\u2019s government. In the 1960s, she joined socialist guerrilla groups that attempted to overthrow Brazil\u2019s military dictatorship, but was captured, tortured and spent more than two years in prison.
\nShe later returned to school and earned an economics degree. She made her way into politics and rose through local and state offices until she was picked by popular President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva to serve as his minister of energy. She later became his chief of staff and his handpicked successor for the 2010 presidential election.
\nWith the Brazilian economy booming at the time, Rousseff coasted to victory. But the economy has been deteriorating ever since her narrow re-election.
\nHer mentor Lula, as he is widely known, also has been implicated in the bribery scandal.
\nGomez reported from Miami Contributing: Doug Stanglin in McLean, Va. \u2013 USA Today via MSN news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rio — After an emotionally charged, late-night debate, the Brazilian Senate voted Wednesday to remove suspended President Dilma Rousseff from office for fiscal irregularities, a move she said amounted to an illegal coup. The 61-20 vote capped a year-long power struggle between Rousseff’s long-governing leftist government and opposition senators and comes less than two weeks after the Rio Olympics, which highlighted Brazil but also put the country’s economic and political woes on international display.The Senate suspended Rousseff in May on charges that she used illegal budgetary maneuvers to hide the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2252,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions\/2252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}