Historical Speech of Brazilian President Dilma Roussef (with English Subtitles)
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday, MAy 15 as a hostile and corruption-tainted congress voted to impeach her.
Transcript (Courtesy: Information Clearing House)
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, journalists.
Good morning, here’s Congressmen, Ministers,
Good morning everyone here.
I will make a statement to the press, so it’s not an interview, it is a statement.
I wanted first to tell you, and say also, to all Brazilians, that the impeachment process was opened by the Senate, and ordered the suspension of my term of office for a maximum period of 180 days.
I was elected president by 54 million Brazilian citizens, and it is in this condition, the condition of a President elected by 54 million, that I address you at this decisive moment for Brazilian democracy and our future as a nation.
What is at stake in the impeachment process is not only my mandate, what is at stake is the respect to the polls, the sovereign will of the Brazilian people and the Constitution.
What is at stake are the achievements of the last thirteen years, the gains of the poorest people, as well as the gains of the middle class. The protection of children, young people access to Universities and to Technical Schools.
The value of the minimum wage, doctors attending to the population. The realization of the dream of home ownership with “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”.
What is at stake is also the great finding of Brazil, the pre-salt.
What is at stake is the future of the country, the opportunity and hope to move forward forever more.
Before the Senate decision, I want once again to clarify the facts and report the risks to the country of a fraudulent impeachment: a real coup.
Since I was elected, the opposition, dissatisfied, called recount, tried to nullify the elections and then went on to openly conspiring for my impeachment.
They plunged the country in a permanent state of political instability, preventing the recovery of the economy, with the sole purpose of taking by force what they did not win at the polls.
My government has been the target of intense and incessant sabotage.
The clear objective has been preventing me to rule and thus forge the environment conducive to the coup.
When an elected president is revoked on charges of a crime he did not commit, the name given to it in the democratic world is not impeachment: it is a coup.
I have not committed a crime of responsibility, there is no reason for impeachment proceedings, I do not have accounts abroad, I never received bribes, I never condoned corruption.
This process is a fragile process, legally inconsistent, an unfair process, initiated against an honest and innocent person.
It is the largest of the brutalities that can be committed to any human being: to punish him for a crime he did not commit.
There is no more devastating injustice than to condemn the innocent.
Injustice is irreparable evil.
This legal farce, that I am facing, is due to the fact that, as president, I never accepted blackmail of any kind.
I may have made mistakes but have not committed crimes. I am being judged unfairly by having done all that the law authorizes me to do.
The acts I practiced were legal acts, correct, necessary acts, acts of government.
Similar acts were performed by the previous Brazilian presidents, before me.
It was not a crime in their time, and also is not a crime now.
They accuse me of having published six supplementation Decrees, six additional credit Decrees and, in so doing, have committed crime against the Budget Law – LOA.
It is false because the Decrees followed authorizations provided by law.
They treat as a crime an everyday management act.
They accuse me of delaying payments of “Plano Safra”, it is false.
I have not determined anything about it. The law does not require my participation in the implementation of this Plan (“Plano Safra”).
My accusers can not even say which unlawful act I have practiced.
What act? Which act?
Moreover, nothing was left to be paid, or any debt remained.
Never in a democracy, the legitimate mandate of an elected president can be stopped because of legitimate acts of budget management.
Brazil can not be the first to do this.
I would also like to address the entire population of my country saying that the coup aims not only to revoke me, to remove a president elected by the vote of millions of Brazilians – direct vote in a fair election.
To dismiss my government, they want actually prevent the execution of the program that was chosen by the majoritarian votes of the 54 million Brazilians.
The coup d’état threatens to ravage not only democracy, but also the achievements that the population reached in recent decades.
All this time, I have been also a zealous guarantor of the democratic rule of law.
My government has not committed any repressive act against social movements, against collective protests, against protesters of any political position.
The risk, the greatest risk to the country at this time is to be directed by a government without any votes.
A government that was not elected by direct vote of the population, a government that will have the legitimacy to propose and implement solutions to the challenges of Brazil.
A government may be tempted to crack down on protesting against him.
A government that is born of a coup.
A fraudulent impeachment.
Born of a kind of indirect election.
A government that is, himself, a big reason for the continuing political crisis in our country.
So, I tell you, all of you, I’m proud to be the first woman elected president of Brazil.
I am proud to be the first woman elected president of Brazil.
In those years, I have exercised my mandate in a dignified and honest way, honoring the votes I received.
On behalf of those votes, and on behalf of all the people of my country, I will fight with all legal instruments available to me to exercise my mandate until the end of my presidencial term, 31st December, 2018.
Destiny always got me many challenges, many great challenges, some appeared to me insuperable, but I managed to overcome them.
I have suffered the unspeakable pain of torture.
The agonizing pain of the disease.
And now I suffer again, the equally unspeakable pain of injustice.
What hurts the most right now is injustice.
What hurts most is to realize that I am the victim of a legal farce and politics.
But I do not subside, I look back and see everything we did.
I look forward and see everything we still need and can do.
The most important is that I can look at myself and see the face of someone who, even marked by time, have the strength to defend ideas and rights.
I fought my whole life for democracy.
I learned to trust the capacity of struggle of our people. I have lived many defeats, and lived big wins.
I confess that I never imagined it would be necessary to fight back against a coup in my country.
Our young democracy, made of struggles, made of sacrifices, even deaths, does not deserve it.
In recent months, our people took to the streets. It took to the streets in defense of more rights, more advances. That’s why I’m sure that people will know to say no to the coup.
Our people are wise, and has historical experience.
Brazilians who are contrary to the coup, regardless of party positions, to all of them I make a call: remain mobilized, united and at peace.
The struggle for democracy has no end date.
It is permanent struggle, which requires us constant dedication.
The fight for democracy, I repeat, has no end date.
The fight against the coup is long, it is a fight that can be won, and we will win.
This victory depends on us all.
Let’s show the world that there are millions of supporters of democracy in our country.
I know, and many here know, especially our people know that history is made through fighting.
And it is always worth fighting for democracy.
Democracy is the right side of history.
We will never give up, I will never give up fighting.
Thank you all very much.
Dilma Rousseff impeachment: what happens next in BrazilRead moreIn a rowdy session of the lower house presided over by the president’s nemesis, house speaker Eduardo Cunha, voting ended late on Sunday evening with 367 of the 513 deputies backing impeachment – comfortably beyond the two-thirds majority of 342 needed to advance the case to the upper house.
As the outcome became clear, Jose Guimarães, the leader of the Workers party in the lower house, conceded defeat with more than 80 votes still to be counted. “The fight is now in the courts, the street and the senate,” he said. As the crucial 342nd vote was cast for impeachment, the chamber erupted into cheers and Eu sou Brasileiro, the football chant that has become the anthem of the anti-government protest. Opposition cries of “coup, coup,coup” were drowned out. In the midst of the raucous scenes the most impassive figure in the chamber was the architect of the political demolition, Cunha.
Watched by tens of millions at home and in the streets, the vote – which was announced deputy by deputy – saw the conservative opposition comfortably secure its motion to remove the elected head of state less than halfway through her mandate. There were seven abstentions and two absences, and 137 deputies voted against the move.
Prof. Boaventura de Sousa Santos says Brazil's Supreme Court is able to intervene on procedural grounds in Dilma Rousseff's impeachment, not on the merits of the case