Brasília: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her allies believe they have the votes in Congress to survive impeachment, but ahead of the first hearings in the lower house there are already signs of cracks in her coalition.
A special commission is due to start forming Monday with representatives of all Congressional parties who will then hear Rousseff's defense and decide whether the impeachment case should be sent for examination by the full house.
On Saturday, both Rousseff's camp and the opposition were jockeying over the exact make-up of the commission, which has the power to reject the impeachment entirely.
But if, as expected, the commission rules in favor of trying Rousseff over her allegedly illegal government accounting practices, the leftist president's survival will depend on keeping her fragile ruling coalition intact.
The most powerful party in the alliance is not Rousseff's Workers' Party but the PMDB of her vice president, Michel Temer.
Brazilian media buzzed with speculation over the weekend on whether Temer will stick with Rousseff or abandon her, hoping to engineer her downfall and, as required by the constitution, become interim president.
An early sign that she cannot count on the PMDB are the still unconfirmed reports that her civil aviation minister, Eliseu Padilha, has tendered his resignation. Padilha is in the PMDB and considered very close to Temer.
"If this departure is not reversible, I think it is a very great loss," Social Communications Minister Edinho Silva told Folha newspaper Saturday.
But Silva said he did not expect an exodus of other PMDB ministers, calling on Temer to play the role of unifier.
"There doesn't have to be a falling apart or an exit. It's not in Vice President Michel Temer's profile to abandon the government," Silva said.
- Political mathematics -
The Rousseff camp, which calls the impeachment "a coup," suffered another setback Friday when the Supreme Court ruled against two requests for an injunction against the process. One more remains to be decided on.
If impeachment goes to the full lower house, Rousseff needs 171 votes -- one third of the deputies -- to clear herself. The same conditions would apply if the case passed in the chamber of deputies and went on to the Senate.
However, even now she can only count on a safety margin of about 50, O Globo newspaper reported, and that's not counting a possible exit by Temer. If that happened, her main remaining hope would be to play on splits within the PMDB, parts of which favor her staying.
Although Rousseff allies publicly insist that Temer will stand by the president, he has pointedly said nothing since the crisis was launched late Wednesday by Rousseff's chief enemy, house Speaker Eduardo Cunha -- also a member of the PMDB.
Privately, the Workers' Party and the president think Temer has already taken his decision, O Dia newspaper reported.
"In the view of the presidency, Vice President Michel Temer is working for Dilma Rousseff's impeachment. The resignation of the minister Eliseu Padilha, closely linked to Temer, and conversations between the vice president and members of the opposition... make it clear," the report said.
AFP
