Impeachment against Brazil's President Rousseff

Glenn Greenwald on Brazil: Goal of Rousseff Impeachment is to Boost Neoliberals & Protect Corruption

Brazil’s Senate has forged ahead with impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, despite an earlier move by the interim house speaker to derail the process.

The previous house speaker, Eduardo Cunha, had led the bid to oust Rousseff, before he himself was suspended over corruption.

On Monday, his replacement, Waldir Maranhão, sought to annul the lower house’s vote in favor of impeachment charges, citing procedural flaws.

But the speaker apparently reversed course in the middle of the night, releasing a statement reversing his decision, without explanation. The Senate appears poised to vote Wednesday on whether to put Rousseff on trial; if a majority side against her, she would be suspended.

We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Brazil.

"People have started to realize, internationally but also here in Brazil, that although this impeachment process has been sold, has been pitched as a way of punishing corruption, its real goal, beyond empowering neoliberals and Goldman Sachs and foreign hedge funds, the real goal is to protect corruption," Greenwald says.

Rousseff Moves Belongings From Planalto Presidential Palace

Sputnik,

12 May, 2016

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has ordered to remove some of her personal belongings from the presidential palace amid the Senate vote on her impeachment, Vanguardia reports.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – On Wednesday, Brazil’s Senate debated whether the president should face an impeachment trial, in which case she would immediately be suspended from her job for up to six months.

According to Vanguardia, some of Rousseff’s belongings have already been moved from the Palacio do Planalto (Brazilian president’s official workplace) in the capital Brasilia to the Palacio de la Alvorada (official residence).

According to Folha de S. Paulo, 28 out of 38 Senators who have delivered speeches so far said they were in favor of Rousseff’s impeachment. A total of 41 votes out of 81 are needed for the impeachment trial.

Police have reportedly used tear gas to disperse Rousseff’s supporters who gathered in front of the Senate building on Wednesday.

In April, two-thirds of Brazil's lower house lawmakers voted in favor of impeaching Rousseff.

Brazil’s president has been facing a wave of public discontent for over a year amid Brazil’s struggling economy and a major corruption scandal in the state-owned Petrobras petroleum company.