Brazil VP Targeted by Impeachment Petition

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RIO DE JANEIRO — An ally of embattled President Dilma Rousseff on Friday filed an impeachment petition against Vice President Michel Temer, citing testimony that implicates him in the sprawling corruption scandal shaking Brazil's political class.

The move by Cid Gomes, who briefly served as education minister in Rousseff's Cabinet, comes as it appears increasingly likely that Rousseff herself will be impeached on allegations she broke fiscal laws.

If she is impeached, Vice President Temer would be first in line to replace her, although his name has been cited by several operators in the snowballing probe into corruption at the state-run oil company Petrobras. In a sign of how much Brazil's political class has been tainted by scandal, the heads of the lower house and Senate, second and third in the line of succession, are also embroiled in the scandal. They all deny wrongdoing.

Gomes told reporters his petition hinged on testimony in the Petrobras probe citing Temer, including a text message suggesting he may have received an illicit payout of $5 million Brazilian reais ($1.4 million).

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/04/01/world/americas/ap-lt-brazil-political-crisis.html

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1. Brazil's Temer: Poetry, quiet power, restrained calculator

His manners and dress are so impeccable that the man who may soon be Brazil's next president is quietly known by political allies and enemies alike as "The Butler."

Yet Vice President Michel Temer, a respected constitutional scholar who would step into the presidency should President Dilma Rousseff be impeached in coming weeks, is not quite what you might expect.

Married to a former beauty pageant contestant 43 years his junior who has his name tattooed on her neck, Temer has also released a book of poetry titled "Anonymous Intimacy."

Its terse verse was penned on airplane napkins while he traveled from the capital Brasilia to his base in Sao Paulo. It includes praise for the female form and oblique allusions to Brazil's polarized politics, which some hope he can ease with his consensus-building manner.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-temer-idUSKCN0WY5E9

[bemildred]

2. Brazil Supreme Court justice slams country's political class

RIO DE JANEIRO – A Brazilian Supreme Court justice was caught on tape calling the country's politics a "disaster" and saying the political system "doesn't have a minimum of democratic legitimacy," according to news reports Friday.

The Globo television network and the nation's top newspapers said Justice Luis Roberto Barroso was recorded without his knowledge during a meeting Thursday with university students. The court's press office declined comment on the matter Friday.

The justice's apparently off-the-cuff remarks seem to echo the sentiment of many Brazilians who are fed up with President Dilma Rousseff and her left-leaning Workers' Party, which has governed the country since 2003, but don't see the scandal-tainted opposition as an appealing alternative.

Rousseff, who is battling the biggest recession in decades and a corruption probe that has circled in on members of her inner circle, is facing impeachment proceedings in Congress on allegations she violated fiscal laws. But those in line to replace her have been implicated in the corruption scandal at the state-run oil company Petrobras, and many here see the impeachment proceedings as a power grab.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/04/01/brazil-supreme-court-justice-slams-country-political-class.html

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3. Brazil justice orders impeachment process for VP Temer, heightens crisis

Source: Reuters

World | Tue Apr 5, 2016 5:56pm EDT

Brazil justice orders impeachment process for VP Temer, heightens crisis

BRASILIA | BY ALONSO SOTO AND ANTHONY BOADLE

A Brazilian Federal Supreme Court justice on Tuesday ordered Congress to start impeachment proceedings against Vice President Michel Temer, deepening a political crisis and uncertainty over leadership of Latin America's largest country.

Justice Marco Aurelio Mello told the lower house to convene a special committee to consider the ouster of Temer over charges he helped doctor budget accounting as part of President Dilma Rousseff's administration.

Another committee is already analyzing similar charges against Rousseff, a leftist who is scrambling for support to defeat an impeachment vote in the lower house as early as mid-April.

Although the unprecedented decision can be overturned by the full supreme court, Mello's ruling raises questions about future governance of a country mired in political turmoil, an economic recession and an institutional crisis increasingly being handled by Brazil's judiciary.

Because Temer is next in line for the presidency if Rousseff were impeached, the possibility of his ouster complicates the calculation that lawmakers must make if they vote to oust Rousseff. If one is guilty of the charges, the ruling suggests, the other is guilty too.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-rousseff-idUSKCN0X21MN