BRASÍLIA: President Dilma Rousseff warned Tuesday that an impeachment process launched against her will harm Brazil's stability.
"This will not bring political stability. Why will it not bring political stability? Because it breaks the foundation of democracy," Rousseff said. The lower house of Congress voted Sunday to impeach her and the case is now with the Senate.
The leftist leader, who could be suspended from office as early as next month if an impeachment trial formally opens, told a press conference with foreign journalists in Brasilia that her opponents had mounted a constitutional coup.
"This process of impeachment in truth is not a process of impeachment," she said, but a "conspiracy" by opponents unable to beat her in elections.
This "is an attempt at circumventing elections by a group that would not be able to get itself elected," she said, singling out her vice president, Michel Temer, and the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha.
Rousseff said the allegations against her that she took unauthorized state loans to mask government budget holes during an election year did not amount to impeachable offenses.
The accounting practice, commonly known in Brazil as "pedaladas," or pedalling, is accepted in many countries and had long been used by previous Brazilian governments, she said.
"There is no legal basis for impeachment," she said.
"I am the victim of a process based on flagrant injustice and legal and political fraud, and at the same time a coup."
She said that despite the upheaval, the Olympics, due to be hosted in Rio de Janeiro in August, will go well.
"I am certain these will be the best Olympic Games in the country and beyond -- in the whole world," she said.
Looking tired, Rousseff struck an emotional note when she said it was "lamentable" that lower house deputy Jair Bolsonaro -- a right-wing populist who praises the military dictatorship of 1964-1985 -- dedicated his pro-impeachment vote on Sunday to Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, a colonel accused of overseeing torture during the regime.
Rousseff also highlighted Brazil's overwhelmingly male-dominated political scene, saying she had been given "treatment that certainly would not be given to a male president."
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