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Rousseff vows to keep fighting the “coup” that pretends to ignore her 54 million votes

Thursday, May 12th 2016 - 18:26 UTC
Full article 76 comments
”I confess, I never imagined it would be necessary to fight against a coup in my country,” Rousseff said in a speech to the nation. ”I confess, I never imagined it would be necessary to fight against a coup in my country,” Rousseff said in a speech to the nation.
“I have made mistakes, but I have not committed any crimes. I am being judged unjustly, because I have followed the law to the letter” “I have made mistakes, but I have not committed any crimes. I am being judged unjustly, because I have followed the law to the letter”
“I'm the victim of a great injustice,” Rousseff told cheering supporters. She delivered a fiery speech from a podium set up outside the Planalto palace “I'm the victim of a great injustice,” Rousseff told cheering supporters. She delivered a fiery speech from a podium set up outside the Planalto palace

Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called the impeachment a ‘coup’, the result of a fraudulent process that ignores the 54 million people who voted for her, but vowed to keep fighting hours after on early Thursday, the Senate voted in favor of her impeachment trial.

 “I confess, I never imagined it would be necessary to fight against a coup in my country,” Rousseff said in a speech to the nation. “Our democracy is young, made by struggle, made by deaths, it doesn't deserve this.”

The move suspends her from office and sends the country deeper into political and economic disarray less than three months before the Rio Olympics. The vote passed 55-22 after more than 20 hours of debate by senators.

Rousseff, Brazil's first female president, denies breaking any fiscal laws. Yet polls show a majority of Brazilians support impeaching her and the vote appears to be equally a referendum on her stewardship of the country's moribund economy.

It took Rousseff less than an hour to make two speeches slamming the vote: One to reporters inside the presidential palace, and one to crowds outside after she was kicked out.

“I'm the victim of a great injustice,” Rousseff told cheering supporters. She delivered a fiery speech from a podium set up outside the Planalto Palace-- stopping several times to ask people around her to move so she could see the crowd.

She shook hands with onlookers, kissed a baby and hugged people afterward. All the while, she decried the impeachment proceedings as a betrayal and an injustice. The effort, she argued, is the latest in a string of moves by her opponents ever since she took office.

“My government was the target of non-stop sabotage,” Rousseff said. “The objective was to stop me from governing and therefore allow an environment inviting the coup.”

“I have made mistakes, but I have not committed any crimes. I am being judged unjustly, because I have followed the law to the letter,” she said.

Rousseff vowed to keep fighting efforts to impeach her, within the law, and called for her supporters to join her.

“Destiny has reserved many challenges for me. ... Some of them seemed impossible to overcome. I have suffered from torture, I have suffered from sickness, and now I suffer from the pain of injustice,” she said.

“What is more painful now is injustice. I am victim of a political farce. But I won't give up. I look back and I see all we have accomplished. I look forward and I see all we still need to do.”

Since Rousseff will be suspended for up to 180 days that means she could be on the sidelines, fighting for her political future, when the Olympics come to Brazil in August.

Michel Temer is now Brazil's interim president. As Rousseff spoke, her one-time vice president posted a photo on his official Twitter account of the moment when he took power. Rousseff retains her title as president by law, but she will not be fulfilling the duties of that office.

Top Comments

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  • axel arg

    WE WILL RETURN.
    Although some cretins must be celebrating in Brasil because Dilma Rousseff was finally suspended, it's necesary to say that the mechanism she used to finance the brasilian budget, which is the main motive of her suspension, is the same one that was used by ALL the former administrations, however there was never any impeachment for anybody, which shows perfectly that she is no more than a victim of the voracity of many cynics who are making such a big farce, just to take her out from the government, because they can't tolerate the fact that they lost, it's pretty obvious that they have no enough dignity to accept their defeat. Beside, those false democrats don't see that they can create an environment of violence, which ends is always absolutly dramatic, those sons of a bitch are cleaning their asses with the popular will of 54 millions of citizens who decided to put Dilma in office again.
    It's pretty evident that they won't never forgive Lula and Dilma the fact that both took more than 40 millions of brasilians out from poverty, who not even could eat meat, because they had no teeth.
    Unfortunatelly, the brasilian society is more reactionary than our's, that's why many people asked for her renounce in the streets, ignoring that she is a legitimate president, voted by a majority, those imbeciles often say that she's a corrupt, but nobody has shown a proof of it, not even the corporate press which is one the main supporters of this coup.
    People in Brasil have a huge fight from now, because they'll be victims of a reactionary and illegitimate government, which will aligne the nation to the interests of U. S. A. and of the European Union, but sooner or later, we will return.

    May 12th, 2016 - 08:03 pm 0
  • Marti Llazo

    “ The coup” = the vote of the democratically elected legislature, by an overwhelming supermajority of elected representatives, to remove a criminal whose blatant crimes can no longer be tolerated by the populace, a populace that gives her an approval rating of about 10 percent.

    But there will always be the populists such as Axel. Voice, and Reekie who favour the perpetuation of leftist criminals in office.

    May 12th, 2016 - 10:02 pm 0
  • Klingon

    @2 Well said.

    Whats that I see. Reekie licking Axel's ass in a show of praise.

    May 12th, 2016 - 10:17 pm 0
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