Brazil coalition partners ‘to vote for Rousseff impeachment’

Two former coalition partners of Brazil President Dilma Rousseff say they will vote for her impeachment over claims she manipulated government accounts.

The Progressive Party (PP), which quit the coalition on Tuesday, says most of its 47 MPs would vote for the impeachment.

The Republican Party (PRB) said its 22 members had been told to vote for it.

The move comes weeks after the PMDB, the largest party in the the lower house, voted to leave the coalition.

Rousseff says her opponents are plotting a “coup”.

She faces an impeachment vote in the lower house on Sunday, amid claims she juggled the accounts to make her government’s economic performance appear better than it was ahead of her election campaign two years ago.

She denies the allegations, and her supporters say the issue is not valid grounds for impeachment anyway.

A PP spokeswoman said on Tuesday: “The party decided to withdraw from the... alliance, by majority decision.” The PP is the fourth-largest party in the 513-seat lower house.

Hours later, the leadership of the PRB confirmed to BBC Brasil that its members had been told to support the removal of the president or face sanctions, including possible expulsion.

While the two developments weaken the position of the president ahead of the impeachment vote, its outcome is uncertain with many members of the lower house still undecided.

A two-thirds majority - 342 MPs - is needed to send the impeachment case to the Senate.

A recent poll, before the PP’s announcement, showed 300 in favour of impeachment and 125 opposed, leaving 88 MPs still undecided or not stating their position.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rousseff suggested that her Vice-President Michel Temer was one of the ringleaders of the “coup” attempt against her.

She said a widely distributed audio message of Temer appearing to accept replacing her as president, was evidence of the conspiracy. However, she did not identify him by name.

“They now are conspiring openly, in the light of day, to destabilise a legitimately elected president,” Rousseff said.

She referred to “the chief and... the vice-chief” of the plot, an apparent reference to Temer and lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha.

Brazil is “living in strange times”, she said, “times of a coup, of farce and betrayal”.

Temer has said that the message was released by accident.

Speaking in an interview with the conservative Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper on Tuesday, Temer argued that he had spent weeks away from the capital Brasilia specifically so that no-one could accuse him of plotting behind the scenes.

On Monday evening, amid rowdy scenes, a 65-member congressional committee voted 38 to 27 to recommend going ahead with impeachment proceedings.

MPs are due to start debating on Friday, officials said, with voting beginning on Sunday at about 14:00 (17:00 GMT). The result should be known later in the evening.

Security is expected to be stepped up around the Congress building in Brasilia as the vote takes place.

While President Rousseff's opponents say the impeachment is supported by most Brazilians, the president's supporters have labelled it a flagrant power grab by her political enemies.

If the president and Mr Temer are both suspended from office, the next in line to assume the presidency is Cunha.

However, he is facing money-laundering and other charges.

From billions being stolen from state oil giant Petrobras by private construction firms and politicians, to a powerful senator negotiating for a key witness to flee from jail, the country has been rife with jaw-dropping corruption revelations.

Yet with all the investigations, one person has managed to keep a fairly clean record - President Dilma Rousseff.

Rousseff’s personal record on corruption may be untarnished so far - but her handling of the economy has been highly controversial. And this is the argument the opposition has been advancing to get her impeached.

Making what critics say are bad decisions on the economy is not a crime. But one of the measures taken by Rousseff and her team back in 2014 was deemed illegal by a federal court.

Brazilian governments are required to meet budget surplus targets set in Congress. Rousseff is accused of allowing creative accounting techniques involving loans from public banks to the treasury that artificially enhanced the budget surplus.