President Dilma Rousseff lost a crucial impeachment vote in Brazil’s lower house on Sunday evening, making her removal ever more likely and deepening the country’s political crisis. Rousseff’s opponents easily obtained the two-thirds majority of votes in the 513-member Chamber of Deputies needed to pass the impeachment measure.
Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo told the congressional impeachment committee Monday that Rousseff had done nothing wrong and to remove her would be tantamount to a putsch.“As such, impeaching her would be a coup, a violation of the constitution, an affront to the rule of law, without any need to resort to bayonets,” Cardozo told the 65-member committee.
Brazil's Senate confirmed the reappointment of Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot, who is leading a massive corruption investigation that has put dozens of politicians under scrutiny for allegedly receiving kickbacks.
As protests again turned violent near the stadium where Brazil’s national team was playing arch-rival Uruguay, legislators kept up a lawmaking spurt aimed at quelling the biggest street demonstrations in two decades by increasing penalties for corruption.
The Brazilian executive apparently has reached an understanding with the presidents of the Senate and the Lower House, Renan Calheiros and Henrique Eduardo Alves for a plebiscite with several questions referred to changes in electoral and party legislation, and eventually the Constitution relative to the political organization of South America’s largest country and powerhouse.