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by Our Foreign Desk
THERE is “no basis” to impeach Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her Senate show trial heard on Saturday night.
Former guerilla Ms Rousseff, who was who was imprisoned and tortured under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, is accused of illegal state borrowing to fund social programmes in the 2014 election year.
The Senate is expected to vote against her today — regardless of the evidence presented — in what she and her Workers’ Party call a legislative coup.
Testifying on the third day of the impeachment trial were former economy minister Nelson Barbosa and Rio State University law professor Ricardo Lodi.
Both testified that Ms Rousseff — suspended from office in May — did not break the law or harm the economy, which is now in deep recession.
“There is no basis to say that the president is criminally responsible,” Mr Barbosa said.
He insisted that decrees issued by Ms Rousseff were fully constitutional.
“There is nothing remotely illegal,” Mr Barbosa said. “You cannot act retroactively with a new interpretation of the law.”
The same argument was delivered Friday by a first batch of witnesses testifying on Ms Rousseff’s behalf who said — as she has — that such budget maneuvers have long been common practice.
Ms Rousseff will testify in her own defence today before the final vote, accompanied by her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who also faces politically motivated charges in a bid to stop him running for president again in 2018.
