Brazil: Impeachment process opens against president Dilma Rousseff

Personally? i believe this is anti-democratic. You can't take out a legally elected President out of it's charge without proof of corruption or because of low performance.

The speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress has opened impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.
The process is based on allegations Ms Rousseff broke the law in managing last year's budget, Eduardo Cunha said.

Despite re-election last year, her popularity has slumped amid a corruption scandal involving the state-owned oil giant, Petrobras.
"I was outraged by the decision," said Ms Rousseff in a televised speech. "I haven't committed any wrongful act," she added.

Ms Rousseff, who earlier called an emergency cabinet meeting, said she was confident that the impeachment motion would be rejected.
Two-thirds of the lower house must approve the process for it to proceed. The governing coalition has a majority in the lower house of Congress.
The defeated opposition candidate in last year's presidential election, Senator Aecio Neves, has tweeted that he supports the impeachment request.

"Everyone in the country must obey the law, especially the president," he wrote.

Difficult Decision

Mr Cunha is himself facing corruption allegations, which he denies. He has been accused of lying about a secret bank account in Switzerland. An ethics committee is voting on whether to authorise action to eject him from his post of speaker. Mr Cunha had been threatening to open impeachment proceedings if the governing party did not offer him backing, says the BBC's Julia Carneiro in Rio de Janeiro.

His decision was "purely technical", he said.

Source

To the Speaker embroiled in his own scandal and under investigation is blackmailing the President with impeachment if she doesn't defend him....WOW.

Corruption in the Brazilian Government? Shocking, said nobody ever. I doubt their has been a leader in Brazil that could not have been impeached for corruption in the last few decades. She of course is an easy target because she is massively unpopular, with a 10% approval rating and a tanking economy. So it is likely she will be removed. Although she will likely take many in the Government with her.

Brazil has some big problems. It is pushing hard for better trade with the US but, that will only help a little as it also needs major fiscal reforms.

originally posted by: Frocharocha
Personally? i believe this is anti-democratic. You can't take out a legally elected President out of it's charge without proof [..]

In Syria you can...at least they try!

Socialist. Not too broken up about it personally.

Brazilian guy here. Long time lurker....

Dilma is by far the worst president we ever had. She and her party are in power for over 12 years now, no real social progress, but the Polícia Federal (our version of the FBI) is uncovering the deepest case of corruption in all our political history. All evidence points to a mega scheme where party/government members were/are involved in huge bribes, robbing money from national companies like PETROBRAS (and faking contracts with private companies like Odebrecht), using the money to pay for election expenses (which is highly ilegal and that's the real legal motive behind the impeachment) and buying congress to make sure laws would only benefit the expansion of government over society. There are actual proof that they (the PT party) used ilegal money to elect her and her predecessor. We are talking billions of dollars here, and that's NOT an exaggeration. Some people (even a Senator) are already in jail.

40% of population are on some sort of welfare programs
The other ones pay up to 60% taxes over all they get (via income) or taxes already on products when purchased. (eg. We have a 30% tax on medicine, for cryin out loud..)
He have over 70 thousand homicides per year, and only 8% of the cases are solved, and of those that are, only 2% get a conviction. Believe it or not!

Our economy is in deep trouble as inflation rises, production is halting and talks of "Depression" are already up.

The impeachment itself won't solve much of the problems, it may only serve as a catalistic event for a social uprising that actually come up with a real full political reform.

So yeah, she should stand down, or get thrown down!

And by the way, Eduardo Cunha is also in bed with corruption, but he is the wrong guy in the right place, doing the right thing for the wrong reason.