Rousseff accuses Brazil opposition of 'coup-mongering'
By Guillermo Parra-Bernal
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said on Tuesday her opponents are trying to overthrow a democratically elected government by seeking to oust her without any material facts while spreading hatred and intolerance across Latin America's largest country.
Speaking to a gathering of union leaders late on Tuesday, Rousseff said the political opposition is practicing "deliberate coup-mongering" against a "project that has successfully lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty."
Her remarks are the harshest since a federal audit court ruled that Rousseff's government manipulated its accounts to disguise a widening deficit as she campaigned for re-election last year and Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha began to analyse a series of impeachment requests against her. While the court ruling is not legally binding, opposition lawmakers are using it to argue for impeachment proceedings.
Opposition parties planned to force a vote in the house that could have opened impeachment proceedings this week, but a Federal Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday suspended the manoeuvre.
Rousseff urged Brazilians to stand up by her and her government, saying that she is not the target or the subject of any ongoing investigation.
"The artificiality of their arguments is absolute, their poisoning of people in social networks, their relentless game of 'the worse she does, the better for us,'" Rousseff said, prompting cheers and applause.
Rousseff said that any eventual breach of Brazil's fiscal responsibility law, as the court ruled, was the result of her government's efforts to maintain social programs for the poor in the light of a deteriorating economy.
(Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Editing by Leslie Adler)
