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Brazil's Dilma Rousseff takes stand in impeachment trial

Igo Estrela | Getty Images

Suspended President Dilma Rousseff appeared before Brazil's Senate on Monday in her last chance to defend herself from charges of breaking budget laws in an impeachment trial that is expected to remove her from office this week.

Senators will question Rousseff in a session expected to last all day. They are then due to vote late on Tuesday or early Wednesday on whether to convict Rousseff and remove her from office.

If she is dismissed, interim President Michel Temer would officially take over as Brazil's leader to serve out the remainder of the presidential term through 2018.

Rousseff's removal would end more than a decade of leftist rule by her Workers Party.

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Rousseff has denied wrongdoing and denounced the nine-month impeachment process that has paralyzed Brazilian politics as a conspiracy to overthrow her and roll back policies that have favored Brazil's poor during 13 years of Workers Party governments.

But a deep recession that many Brazilians blame her for and a huge corruption scandal involving state-run energy company Petrobras (Sao Paulo Stock Exchange: PETR'-BR) have undermined Rousseff's popularity since she was re-elected in 2014.

Her vice-president, Temer, has been interim president since mid-May, when Rousseff was suspended after Congress decided it would continue the impeachment process that began in the lower house.

If the Senate convicts Rousseff on Tuesday or Wednesday as expected, Temer, 75, will be sworn in to serve out the rest of her term through 2018. His business-friendly government vows to take unpopular austerity measures to plug a growing fiscal deficit that cost Brazil its investment-grade credit rating last year.

Temer is confident he has the two-thirds of the chamber needed to remove Rousseff, and he has planned an address to the nation on Wednesday before heading to China to attend the summit of the G-20 group of leading economies.

"We need 54 votes, and we expect to get at least 60," Temer's press spokesman, Marcio de Freitas, told Reuters.

He said the more votes Temer got, the stronger would be his mandate to take the difficult measures needed to restore confidence in Brazil's economy, caught in a two-year recession.

A survey published by O Globo newspaper on Sunday showed 53 senators would vote against Rousseff and only 18 would back her —10 short of the 28 she needs to avoid being ousted. Ten senators have not stated a position or were not polled.

Even senators not convinced the accounting charges brought against Rousseff warrant her impeachment have decided to vote against her because they see her return to the presidency prolonging Brazil's political crisis.

"I will vote against her even though I think it is a tragedy to get rid of an elected president, but another 2-1/2 years of a Dilma government would be worse," centrist Senator Cristovam Buarque said in a phone interview.

Rousseff has lost her base of support in Congress and can no longer run the country effectively, he said.

Senator Helio Jose, who was the Rousseff government's deputy whip in the Senate, has not declared his vote. But he said in a telephone interview that Temer was doing a good job restoring stability since he took over from Rousseff.

"I don't think the return of President Dilma would be good for the country Temer has built support in Congress to pass austerity measures we need to recover confidence and draw investment to Brazil," he said.

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