Brazil impeachment: Vote deals new blow to Rousseff

The vote took place amid raucous scenes and after a bad-tempered debate

 

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff has suffered a blow to her hopes of staving off impeachment proceedings, after a committee voted they should go ahead.

The 65-member congressional committee voted 38 to 27 to recommend impeachment over claims she manipulated government accounts to hide a growing deficit.

All eyes will now be on a full vote in the lower house on 17 or 18 April.
The issue has divided Brazil, with police preparing for mass protests in the capital, Brasilia.

Thousands of President Rousseff's supporters rallied in Rio de Janeiro

The committee's vote is largely symbolic, but has been watched as a measure of how much support there is for the impeachment process ahead of the crucial vote in the full lower house of Congress, correspondents say.
There, a two-thirds majority is needed to send the matter on to the Senate. The latest opinion poll by the Estadao daily suggests 292 of the 513 members are in favour, with 115 against and 106 undecided.
The Senate would then have the power to suspend Ms Rousseff, put her on trial and ultimately drive her from office.

 

During a bad-tempered debate leading up to the vote, Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cordozo, speaking for the president, said the impeachment process was "flawed".
"It is absurd to dismiss a president who has not committed crimes, nor stolen a penny. And such a process without crime or fraud, would be a coup," he said.
Opposition lawmaker Vanderlei Macris said an impeachment would be important to Brazilian society and would bring change.