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Brazil impeachment committee recommends removing Rousseff

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AFP
Last Updated : Aug 04 2016 | 10:48 PM IST
A Brazilian Senate committee voted today to recommend the full upper house remove suspended president Dilma Rousseff from office in an impeachment trial, sending the nation's political drama into its end game.
The decision -- passed by a vote of 14 to five -- is non-binding, but delivers Rousseff yet another setback on the eve of the Olympics opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.
Instead of presiding over the opening of an Olympics once meant to showcase Brazil's growing economic power and political stability, Rousseff now takes another step toward what looks increasingly like her political downfall.
Rousseff is accused of spending money without congressional approval and taking out unauthorized loans from state banks to make the national budget look better than it really was as she campaigned for re-election in 2014.
She says such maneuvers were common practice under previous administrations, and calls the impeachment procedure a coup in disguise.
Her allies point out that many of the lawmakers accusing her are implicated in corruption cases far more serious than mere accounting shenanigans.

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But opponents on the impeachment committee delivered a damning verdict.
"The president will be removed from office for the extremely serious crimes she committed," said Senator Cassio Lima of the opposition PSDB party.
"It was the biggest fiscal fraud in the country's history."
Rousseff is refusing to attend tomorrow's Olympic ceremony, saying she does not want to play a "secondary role."
Her bitter political enemy Michel Temer, who is serving as interim president, will oversee the opening ceremony. If she is removed from office, he will become the full-fledged president until elections in 2018.
On August 9, the full Senate will vote on whether to proceed with the impeachment trial. A simple majority would suffice and the measure is expected to pass easily.
Then a final and decisive session in the full Senate is scheduled for August 29, a week after the Olympics close, when a two-thirds majority is required to eject Rousseff.
Impeachment committee official Antonio Anastasia said Tuesday that he fully supports finding Rousseff guilty.
"I vote for the accusation to go ahead," he said in a report to the rest of the committee, calling the case against Rousseff "undeniable.

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First Published: Aug 04 2016 | 10:48 PM IST

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