Parliamentary Coup in Brazil
by Stephen Lendman
In an overnight Wednesday session, majority fascist Brazilian senators voted to impeach Rousseff without just cause – following majority lower house members in mid-April voting the same way.
An 11th hour Supreme Court appeal on her behalf was denied, along with a separate appeal to bar vice president/interim president Michel Temer from replacing her ministers with ones he and other fascists usurping power choose.
Rousseff must now step down for 180 days until a Senate trial convicts or exonerates her. Removing her requires a two-thirds majority. A previous article explained no legitimate grounds for impeachment exist.
She committed no crimes. Charges allege budgetary practices similar to what many government employ legally without opposition.
Her supporters held an overnight vigil. Street protests are planned. Once officially notified of suspension, she’ll address the nation on national television, making her case before the Brazilian people.
No legal basis justifies removing her. The US-manipulated scheme involves replacing social democracy with neoliberal harshness.
Telesur cited an O estado de Sao Paulo report, indicating Temer’s Brazilian Democratic Movement Party intends sweeping social program cuts, harming the nation’s poor hardest.
Attorney General Eduardo Cardozo addressed Senate members, explaining impeaching Rousseff is entirely for illegitimate political reasons.
He called proceedings against her a “coup…I will be on the right side of history because I defended the Constitution,” he added.
The Congresso em Foco parliamentary watchdog broadsheet published names of 81 senators involved in 24 corruption investigations.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Rousseff called proceedings against her “a coup. (T)o have an impeachment, there needs to be a crime…And” none was committed, she asserted.
Brazil is rife with public and private corruption, corporate crooks and high-level opposition figures involved along with numerous other government officials, Rousseff untainted and uncharged.
Voting to impeach her ended over 13 years of Workers’ Party rule under Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Rousseff. US-supported fascists are poised to take over.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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