Brazil's embattled Dilma Rousseff loses parties from coalition

The opposition has stepped up its campaign against Dilma Rousseff

 

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has lost more coalition partners in another blow to her bid to avoid impeachment.

The Progressive Party (PP) said most of its 47 MPs would vote for Ms Rousseff to be impeached.
The PRB told BBC Brasil its 22 members had also been told to support the impeachment.
Last month the PMDB, the largest party in Brazil's governing coalition, also voted to leave.
Ms Rousseff says her opponents are plotting a "coup".
She faces an impeachment vote in the lower house on Sunday, amid claims she manipulated accounts to make her government's economic performance appear better than it was ahead of her election campaign two years ago.

She denies the allegations, and her supporters say the issue is not valid grounds for impeachment anyway.

President Rousseff denies the accusations against her

 

Earlier on Tuesday, Ms Rousseff suggested that her Vice-President Michel Temer was one of the ringleaders of the "coup" attempt against her.
She said a widely distributed audio message of Mr Temer appearing to accept replacing her as president, was evidence of the conspiracy. However, she did not identify him by name.
"They now are conspiring openly, in the light of day, to destabilise a legitimately elected president," Ms Rousseff said.
She referred to "the chief and... the vice-chief" of the plot, an apparent reference to Mr Temer and lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha.
Brazil is "living in strange times", she said, "times of a coup, of farce and betrayal".
Mr Temer has said that the message was released by accident.