Former President Dilma Rousseff is impeached

On today’s afternoon (Wednesday, August 31, 2016), the former President of Brazil, Ms. Dilma Vana Rousseff, was officially impeached by the Federal Senate, after voting resulted in 61 in favour of her exit and 20 against. However she still retains her political rights, voted separately from her mandate, making her eligible to new elections. The reunion to decide Rousseff’s destiny had began on last Thursday (August 25) and went through the week (except on Sunday (August 28) until today. Now the Vice-President in exercise of the function of President, Mr. Michel Temer, will be vested as President in an extemporary ceremony at the Chamber of Deputies, and his position remains vacant until new elections, in 2018.

First day – Thursday, August 25

The first day of Rousseff’s trial was intended to read the formal accusations against the former President and to hear the testimonies of accusation witnesses. Ricardo Lewandowski, President of Federal Court of Justice, was replacing the Senate’s President, Renan Calheiros, in order to conduce the trial properly. Just in the beginning of the reunion, around ten parliamentarians rehearsed using regimental resources to prevent the speed of the process, but Lewandowski was strictly against them all and keep on going with the meeting until a deep confusion caused by a discussion between parliamentarians Gleici Hoffmann, Ronaldo Caiado and Lindbergh Farias. Hoffmann declared none of her colleagues had the morality to be there, judging a President, and both senators condemned her behaviour, sparkling a discussion with tons of curses and accusations between themselves. Lewandowski opted for ending the plenary session in order to calm all politicians present there. The session came back afterwards and went on without bigger troubles.

Second day – Friday, August 26

On the second day, Lewandowski and all parliamentarians were supposed to hear the testimonies of defence witnesses. Former ministries of Rousseff’s government were called to testify about her conduct as Head of State, and the defence tried many different ways to disqualify accusation’s witnesses, being them rejected by the President of Federal Court of Justice. However, Caiado and Farias went on another discussion, leading Lewandowski to suspend the reunion and threat both parliamentarians of expelling them from the Plenary. Besides this, there was another discussion happening at the very same time, now between Hoffmann and Calheiros, the President of Senate, but he declared some hours later he was sorry for what he said to his colleague. It was also reported that the senator Ana Amélia had called the Ethics Committee against Hoffmann’s speech in the previous day.

Third day – Saturday, August 27

As the previous session took too long, some defence witnesses were transferred to Saturday, in order not to extend too much the reunion. It was a consensus between these last witnesses that the edict granted by Rousseff were not criminal nor disrespected the budget agreements, despite all proofs shown by the accusation. Since most of parliamentarians were already decided about their votes, the session was only protocol – Rousseff’s opposites were already celebrating their extra official victory and her allies were planning manoeuvres to split the voting in two, being one for her impeachment and the other one for her political rights. This division was successful among parliamentarians some days afterwards.

Fourth day – Monday, August 29

On Monday, parliamentarians were severely anxious, since it was due to be Rousseff’s testimony in front of the Senate and the Brazilian people. The former President came up the pulpit to expatiate about her achievements as a ruling leader and to denounce she was being victim of a coup and that parliamentarians were convicting an innocent person. Rousseff was heavily questioned by all senators, and also by her defenders and detractors, and spoke for around thirteen hours about her government, the illegal negotiations for supplementary credits, and the accusation of fiscal responsibility crime against her. The session ended with Janaína Paschoal, one of the main heads of the impeachment process, questioning Rousseff about the economic crisis in Brazil and about the then President’s inability to deal with it by not hearing Guido Mantega (former ministry of Finance) when he advised her one year before the great eruption, while the people from Workers’ Party (Rousseff’s political party) did not question properly Rousseff, preferring to use their time to extol her government and to claim she was being victim of a parliamentary coup. The reunion took around fourteen hours, and Rousseff was acclaimed by position and opposition for not fail to respond any questions directed to her.

Fifth day – Tuesday, August 30

The following day was remarkable as the last opportunity for both sides to expose their points of views and to discuss the culpability of Rousseff for her manoeuvres to ensnare the National Treasury. Paschoal used her time to defend her position as one of the authors of the impeachment process not to personally offend Rousseff, but to teach her a lesson of honesty and citizenship, alongside the urgent wish to build a better place to her grandchildren. – the jurist also said she was sorry for causing so much suffering to Rousseff, but she couldn’t be quiet watching all this misrepresentation of the Brazilian politics On the other hand, José Eduardo Cardozo, Rousseff’s lawyer, was very incisive when claiming this process was a bogus attempt to belittle the former President’s work as a leader, and that the parliamentarians following the intention of impeach Rousseff would regret this very decision in the future – he even cried when being interviewed by journalists after his defence, alleging he felt tremendously inadmissible with Paschoal citing Rousseff’s grandchildren as a cheap resource to move public opinion.

Sixth day – Wednesday, August 31, 2016

On the last day of the process, it was meant just to vote Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment , but parliamentarians from her party were successful in splitting her judging into two parts – the former President should be voted for her impeachment of continuing her presidential mandate, and after for her right of still be eligible for next elections. In Brazil, if these two things are judged together and the politician is convicted, he loses his political rights and remains ineligible for eight years – just as happened to Fernando Collor de Mello, former President impeached in 1992. Taken the decision, the first voting was extremely tense, but no news to people: with 61 votes in favour and 20 against, and also with no abstentions nor absences, Dilma Rousseff was officially declared impeached of keeping on her presidential mandate. However, in the second voting, there were no consensus among parliamentarians, resulting in 42 in favour of Roussef’s political disablement , 36 against it and 3 abstentions – the minimum quorum required to approve the punishment was 54 favourable votes. With this, Rousseff is not barred from holding public offices nor standing in next election. This last decision was acclaimed by her fellows, but earned mixed reaction on opposition – Hélio Bicudo, jurist and one of the authors of the impeachment process, said he wasn’t as happy as expected, since this last decision did not live up to the Clean Record Law, a federal law that states no politician with court lawsuits are allowed to run for elections. After the ending of the section, Temer had a brief reception to officialise his presidential inauguration and made a speech for open TV channels talking the last news and calling population to keep together throughout the way back to ordinary. Rousseff, meanwhile, is planning a last TV appearance to allege she is suffering a parliamentary coup and that the Senate had convicted an innocent woman due to misogyny and frivolous and unfounded accusations.

Summing up this whole situation: Brazil has now a new President – by far, the country is now on the hands of his interim, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Mr. Rodrigo Maia, since Temer had flew tonight to China, where he joins the G-20 reunion in Shanghai next week – but this is definitely not enough to solve all the problems, since all other corrupt politicians are still ruling the game. Brazil does need an urgent political reform, due to its trouble with endemic corruption and inappropriate conduction of its political representatives. Temer is definitely not the best option to the country, but we do need to learn how to go on step by step when we talk about politics.