Spotlight: Impeachment of Brazil's Rousseff looms ahead amid political turmoil

A Brazilian congressional committee on Monday voted in favor of moving forward with the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, thus paving the way for the full chamber to vote on the matter.

The 65-member Special Impeachment Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, or lower house of parliament, voted 38-27 to recommend an impeachment of Rousseff over breaking budget laws to support her re-election in 2014. Jovair Arantes, rapporteur of the Special Committee, said last week that Rousseff was accused of manipulating government accounts without requiring congressional approval.

The government had delayed paying loans to public banks, which "created an ingenious mechanism to hide a fiscal deficit, which was very high from 2013," and Rousseff bears responsibility for the irregular government accounts, Arantes said.

The vote in the full lower house is expected on Sunday. If two thirds of the chamber deputies vote in favor, the motion then goes to the Senate, which would rule whether Rousseff should be removed.

The proposal on impeaching Rousseff emerged last year when the president's popularity was steadily eroded by Brazil's worst recession in decades and a huge corruption scandal at the state oil giant Petrobras, which fueled the political opposition's attempt to remove her from power.

Rousseff's dismal rate of support also unraveled the loose-knit alliance of left-leaning parties, including the Workers' Party (PT), to which Rousseff belongs, and the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), to which her vice president Michel Temer, also her arch enemy, belongs.

The PMDB, which had been part of the ruling coalition since 2006, officially broke from Rousseff on March 29, making many see Rouseff's presidency running into a dead end.

Rousseff, however, has denied any wrongdoing and rallied members of her Workers' Party to oppose what she has called a "coup."

On March 31, tens of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest against the possible impeachment of Rousseff, chanting that they were defending democracy and that there is no legal basis for Rousseff's impeachment.

Last week, Brazil's Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo, acting as the government's legal counsel, said the call to impeach the president had no legal basis and was motivated by a political "vendetta."

Chamber of Deputies President Eduardo Cunha, who is in charge of the impeachment proceedings in the lower house, is himself under investigation for holding millions of U.S. dollars in secret offshore bank accounts.

Things came to a head on Monday when Vice President Temer was caught in a leaked audio message rehearsing a speech to the nation, making it appear as if he was preparing to take over if Rousseff is forced from office.

Temer later explained that the audio message was an answer to inquiries of political allies about what he would do if he takes over, adding that he sent the message to the wrong person, and it reached the press.

Chief of staff of Rousseff's presidential office Jaques Wagner said Monday that Temer, the mastermind behind the PMDB's announcement last month to leave the ruling coalition, was a sponsor of the impeachment against Rousseff.

"The records revealed today show that the vice president, without any problems, forgets his institutional role, despises the ritual of his position and openly sponsors a dissimulated coup," Wagner said. Endi