International News

BRASMLIA, Aug 31 (APP/AFP): Brazilian senators engaged in marathon debate Tuesday on the eve of voting on whether to strip Dilma Rousseff of the presidency and end 13 years of leftist rule in Latin America’s biggest country.
Lawyers on both sides of the impeachment trial dividing Brazil made
impassioned closing arguments, followed by final speeches from senators.
The vote on Rousseff’s fate, originally set for Tuesday, was put off to Wednesday.
Brazil’s first woman president, 68, is accused of taking illegal state loans to patch budget holes in 2014, masking the country’s problems as it slid into its deepest recession in decades.
Latest estimates from independent analysts and pro-impeachment senators are that the upper chamber will easily reach the two-thirds majority — 54 out of 81 senators — to convict Rousseff. Loyalists say they haven’t yet lost hope of saving the Workers’ Party president.
“The chances of impeachment not passing and the president being made to step down are virtually nill,” said political analyst Adriano Codato at Parana University.
If Rousseff is forced from office, her former vice president turned bitter foe Michel Temer will be immediately sworn in as president until the next scheduled elections in late 2018.
Temer, 75, took over in an interim role after Rousseff’s initial suspension in May and at once named a new government with an agenda shifting Brazil to the right.
Rousseff, in a 14-hour appearance Monday, defiantly challenged senators to acquit her, branding impeachment as a “coup.”