Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has suffered a major new setback, with a court ruling that her government’s accounting practices were illegal, paving the way for her opponents to try to impeach her. Aljazeera has more:
Wednesday’s decision by the Federal Accounts Court was the latest blow to Rousseff, less than a year into her second term. The court said that her government’s accounting practices in 2014, including taking what amounted to unauthorised loans from state-owned banks to make up for budget shortfalls, broke the law.
“The accounts are not a condition where they can be approved. We recommend their rejection,” the lead judge, Augusto Nardes, said after the court’s panel voted unanimously. The government says it did nothing illegal and that it was merely juggling funds in line with previous practices.
The court’s ruling, which next goes to Congress, was likely to give powerful impetus to Rousseff’s congressional opponents, led by the scandal-plagued speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who has repeatedly threatened to push for impeachment. Late on Tuesday, another judicial body, the electoral court, or TSE, ruled in favour of probing alleged illegalities in Rousseff’s 2014 re-election campaign.
