Rousseff’s accuser says she should be judged for Brazil crisis

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s accusers said in her Senate trial that she should not only be judged on chargers of breaching budget rules but also for a massive corruption scandal and a deep recession that took place under watch.

Rousseff, who was suspended from office in May pending her trial, has been accused of using money from Brazilian state banks to help fund her re-election campaign in 2014, a budgetary sleight of hand commonly used by Brazilian elected officials.

However, lawyer Janaina Paschoal, the author of the impeachment request against Rousseff, told the Senate in her closing arguments today said that the trial was not simply about “accounting issues” but about the damage done to Brazil by her government.

“You might say that this is beyond the scope of the trial but this is the reality and you as senators cannot vote ignoring our reality,” she said. “The world needs to know that we are not just voting about accounting issues.”

In her testimony on Monday, Rousseff denied any wrongdoing and claimed the entire impeachment process was aimed at reversing the social gains achieved under 13 years of socialist rule and at protecting the interests of the Brazilian elite.

In an emotional speech, she compared her trial to her persecution under Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, where she was tortured by security services as a member of a leftist guerrilla group.

A final vote on the trial is expected on Wednesday morning, Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski – who is presiding over the process – said.

In addition to the closing arguments by Rousseff’s defence and accusers, over 60 of the chamber’s 81 senators have already registered to speak in the final debate.

After riding high on the back of a commodities boom in her first four years as president, Rousseff’s popularity has now sunk to single figures, largely due to a massive scandal at state oil company Petrobras, as well as to a deep recession that many Brazilians blame on her government’s interventionist policies.

If the Senate convicts Rousseff, she would become the first Brazilian leader in over 20 years to be dismissed from office, and her conservative former vice president Michel Temer will become president until the end of her term in 2018.

Temer, who has been interim president since Congress opened impeachment proceedings against Rousseff in May, has pledged to impose austerity measures to plug a growing fiscal deficit that last year cost Brazil its investment-grade credit rating. He is so confident of the trial’s outcome that he has already planned an address to the nation on Wednesday, before heading out to China to attend the summit of the G20 group of leading economies in search of investment and trade to revive Brazil’s economy.