BRASÍLIA: Brazil's impeachment plot thickened Wednesday with speculation rife over whether President Dilma Rousseff will be abandoned by a key ally and the Supreme Court stepping in to put the whole process on hold.
For Rousseff, the court's decision late Tuesday to freeze the impeachment machine for a week offered badly needed respite as she fights to avoid being ejected one year into her second term at the head of Latin America's biggest country.
And a meeting late Wednesday with Vice President Michel Temer, who has hinted strongly he will join the push to impeach, appeared to ease tension between the two.
Temer is from the centrist PMDB party, the main coalition partner for Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party, and if he were to walk out on her, she would find it harder to get the one third majority needed in Congress to defeat impeachment.
Although Temer has kept a cryptic silence on his ultimate intentions, he has dropped strong hints that he no longer considers himself bound to his constitutional boss, including sending a letter on Monday to complain about her lack of trust in him.
Citing advisors, the Globo TV network reported that Rousseff and Temer decided that the issue of impeachment would not come up at their future meetings, that Temer would not have to make public statements supporting the government and that he would not work toward her impeachment.
Brazil's first female president, a moderate leftist, is accused of illegal budgeting maneuvers, but says the practices were long accepted by previous governments. She calls the attempt to bring her down a "coup."
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