Brazil’s Senate started the trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday after a lengthy impeachment process that has paralyzed the politics of Latin America`s largest nation and is expected to culminate in her removal from office next week.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski reminded Senators that they must act as judges and put aside their political views.
Thursday’s session will hear witnesses for and against Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, who is charged with breaking budget laws.
The leftist leader, whose popularity has been hammered by a deep recession and massive corruption scandal since she won reelection in 2014, will appear before the 81 senators on Monday to defend herself, but her opponents are confident they have more than the 54 votes needed to convict her.
Authorities prepared barriers to contain demonstrations outside Brazil’s modernistic Congress building, but few Rousseff supporters have turned out, pointing to the isolation of the impeached president.
“Every one of you should vote as an individual and not according to party,” Lewandowski told senators in his opening remarks.
Some two hours later, however, Lewandowski had to suspend the session briefly when a verbal fight broke out between senators.
If the final vote, which is expected late Tuesday or in the early hours of Wednesday, goes against Rousseff it would confirm her vice president, Michel Temer, as Brazil’s new leader for the rest of her four-year term through 2018, ending 13 years of left-wing Workers Party rule.
