Brazilian Senate begins impeachment trial against President

The Brazilian Senate on Thursday began the impeachment trial of suspended president Dilma Rousseff.

Rousseff is accused of seeking to hide public budget deficits through fiscal irregularities, such as delaying loan payments to public banks and ordering additional loans without congressional approval.

Kicking off proceedings at 09:33, Ricardo Lewandowski, president of Brazil’s Supreme Court, read out the order of proceedings to a sparsely filled Senate chamber, with only 28 of 81 senators present.

The witnesses for the prosecution then began to be heard. These include Julio Marcelo de Oliveira, a public official from the federal accountability office (TCU) who made the allegations against Rousseff, and Antonio Carlos Costa D’Avila, the chief auditor of the TCU.

Rousseff’s defense lawyer Jose Eduardo Cardozo said the debate still focuses on whether there is any dereliction of duty by the suspended president.

“We are hearing the testimonies including two from the prosecutors. Then we will hear testimonies from the defense, and further discuss whether there is any dereliction of duty. I don’t think there is any but we will continue to discuss it,” said Cardozo.

However, one of the lawyers who submitted the accepted request for the impeachment of Rousseff, Janaina Paschoal, said evidence clearly shows Rousseff’s fiscal manipulation.

“This is not the largest controversy. Evidence shows that they used public banks to manipulate the accounts so that they could present a nice governmental financial position to the nation and the world. Any company faking their balance sheets would be closed and the related directors would be charged. Can a country involved in such a case not punish the related personnel?” said Paschoal.

With 15 undecided voters, 48 senators voted yes for the impeachment, and 18 no, on Thursday.

Friday will be dedicated to hearing from witnesses and this process may continue into the weekend, if needed.

The defense has presented six witnesses, the maximum permitted. They are Rousseff’s former planning minister Nelson Barbosa, her former budget secretary Esther Dweck, a leading economist Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo, former political investment secretary Gilson Bettencourt, former executive secretary of the ministry of education Luiz Claudio Costa, and a law professor from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Geraldo Prado.

The declarations of each witness will be heard individually, followed by three minutes allotted for questions from each senator and three minutes for answers.

On Monday, Aug. 29, Rousseff will appear and provide her testimony while the prosecutors and defense lawyers will present their cases. On Tuesday, Aug. 30, the senators will express their opinions about the case.

The final vote on whether to impeach Rousseff or not could be held on Aug. 30, if time allows, or the next day.

Rousseff was temporarily suspended for up to 180 days on May 12 and her Vice President Michel Temer took over the presidency on an interim basis.

A two-thirds majority, 54 out of 81 senators, is needed to fully remove her from office. If this level of support is not obtained, Rousseff will immediately return to power and the case against her will be dropped.

Should Rousseff be impeached, Temer would complete her mandate until the end of 2018 and she would be ineligible to stand for public office for eight years.