Brazil’s ruling coalition ‘lacks votes’ to stave off impeachment

One-third of votes needed in 81-seat senate to stop Dilma Rousseff being dismissed

Brazil’s ruling coalition lacks the votes in the senate to defeat a request to remove left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff from office if it is approved by the lower house, a senior senator in the coalition’s largest party said on Sunday.

The leading member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said the coalition could not rally the one-third of votes needed in the 81-seat senate to stop Ms Rousseff being dismissed.

On Sunday, Estadao newspaper quoted sources close to senate speaker Renan Calheiros, also a member of the PMDB, as saying he believed that if the lower house approves the ongoing impeachment process it would create an unstoppable wave of support for removing Ms Rousseff. A spokesman for Mr Calheiros was not immediately available for comment.

Congress’s lower house opened impeachment proceedings last week against the unpopular Mr Rousseff based on opposition allegations that she deliberately manipulated government accounts to boost her chances of re-election to a second term in 2014. Ms Rousseff has vigorously denied any wrongdoing.

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The impeachment process only adds to the crisis that has hit Brazil, shaken to the core by its biggest ever corruption scandal – an investigation into political kickbacks to the ruling coalition from contractors working for state oil company Petrobras.

Ms Rousseff’s government is also grappling with the worst recession in decades in Latin America’s largest economy.

A survey published on Saturday by polling firm Datafolha showed support for Ms Rousseff’s impeachment rising to 68 per cent, close to the record level of 71 per cent reached in August. With opposition parties hurrying along proceedings, a special impeachment committee could present its findings as soon as mid-April.

Ms Rousseff appointed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as her chief of staff on Wednesday, hoping to capitalise on his political influence to rally support in the lower house to halt the impeachment process. However, the move sparked protests in several cities as the opposition slammed the move as an attempt to shield Lula from prosecutors’ charges of money-laundering and fraud in the Petrobras investigation.

Ministers can only be tried by the supreme court, putting Lula out of reach of the task force in the southern city of Curitiba that is leading the Petrobras probe.

A supreme court judge on Friday struck down Lula’s appointment saying it appeared aimed at perverting the course of justice, after the judge leading the Petrobras probe released recordings that he said showed Ms Rousseff and Lula discussing how to block the investigation. Both Lula and Ms Rousseff denied this.

Lula’s lawyers said on Sunday they had appealed to the head of the supreme court to overturn the suspension of his ministerial appointment. (– Reuters)