MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay's Home Secretary questions the legitimacy of Temer, and calls removal of Rousseff, a “coup”

Bonomi made the statement to a Montevideo radio station when asked specifically if he considered the destitution of Rousseff a coup, he replied, “I believe so”.

Uruguay's Home Secretary Eduardo Bonomi described the removal of Brazilian ex president Dilma Rousseff as a “coup” and underlined her successor Michel Temer “has no legitimacy” to occupy the Executive. He added that the events of this week in Brazil have had an impact on Brazilian democracy and the region overall.

 Bonomi made the statements on Thursday to a Montevideo radio station and when asked specifically if he considered the destitution of Rousseff a coup, he replied, “I believe so”.

“Dilma went to the Justice courts and Justice said no crime had been committed. Thus I believe there is no legitimate trigger to legally apply the legitimate institutional resort.

Therefore if this does not exist, it has all the characteristics of a coup détat”, argued the minister who supposedly with the cabinet's highest political exposure.

Bonomi added that the argument which blames Dilma for the extended corruption in the oil giant Petrobras case since they happened during her administration, is not a sufficient justification to remove her, since “after all this happened, there was a full first mandate of Dilma and then she was re-elected”.

The Home Secretary said that the “true motive” for her destitution was the vested interests which wanted to stop investigations into corruption in Brazil and that she refused point blank to stop. Given this background, Bonomi insisted that Michel Temer, has “no legitimacy” to take the presidential office in Brazil.

“The true motive is that the Executive requested Dilma to stop the judiciary investigation into overall corruption in Brazil, but Dilma refused and they removed her to name somebody who would. Therefore whoever replaces her has no legitimacy and I believe this is very serious, very serious, which injures deeply the Brazilian democracy”, concluded minister Bonomi.

Bonomi belongs to the grouping headed by ex president Jose Mujica, who claims in private the removal of Dilma was an “institutional coup”, but in the political rallies stand calls it a “coup d'État”.

This stance does not necessarily reflect the full official position of the Uruguayan government and President Tabare Vazquez, which late Thursday issued a release saying basically that despite the legality invoked, “the Uruguayan government considers the destitution of Dilma Rousseff a profound injustice”.

Rousseff was impeached for accounting cosmetics, transferring state bank funds to balance the budget and other government companies, during the 2014 presidential electorate campaign. It is typified as a federal crime in the Brazilian constitution, but it's also extended practice in federal and state accounting.

The ex president was also energy minister in a previous government and as such chair of Petrobras board, when allegedly most of the corruption scam involving company's top officials, corporations anxious to win contracts and politicians in need of resources to fund campaigns occurred.

The Uruguayan government release, referred to the political and jurisdictional processes in Brazil states that ”Uruguay has followed closely the political and jurisdictional processes in Brazil which culminated yesterday (Wednesday) with the Senate's decision to remove the president legitimately elected by the Brazilian people.

”Uruguay wishes to underline the role played by President Dilma Rousseff in strengthening the historic bilateral relation (with Uruguay), which opened the way for a strategic alliance that has been to the benefit of both peoples.

“Uruguay aspires that in the framework of the democratic institutionalism, the Brazilian people achieves the objectives of stability and development.

”Despite the legality invoked, the Uruguayan government considers a profound injustice such destitution”.