Dilma Rousseff, the embattled president Brazilian president, has acknowledged the possibility that she may not play any official role during the Olympic Games if the senate passes an impeachment motion against her.
The Brazilian parliament’s lower house last week overwhelmingly approved a motion for her impeachment. If the senate follows suit in the next few weeks, Rousseff may have to step down as early as May – three months before the Games start in Rio de Janeiro. She will be at least temporarily replaced by a centre-right administration led by vice-president Michel Temer.
“If that happens, I will be very sad. ... I would very much like to take part in the Olympic process, because I helped build the effort from day one,” Rousseff told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview to be aired on Thursday.
Rousseff is accused of using dubious accounting tricks to fund welfare and other government programmes ahead of the last election. She has rebutted these charges in painstaking detail, saying that such tactics were common not just in Brazil but other countries. Low approval ratings, she said, should not be what fuels a push to remove a democratically elected leader from office.
Since her election in 2010, the Brazilian president has seen her ratings plummet amid an economic recession and bribery scandal involving the state-run oil company Petrobras. But Rousseff has not been charged with any crime and many are uneasy that she is being impeached on a technicality by opposition politicians who stand accused of far more serious wrongdoing.
In her CNN interview, Brazil’s first female president said her gender had contributed to efforts to her problems. “I think there is a very strong element that has to do with the fact that I am a woman,” she said. “They have often said that I was a very harsh woman.”
“And I have always replied as follows: ‘Yes, I am a harsh woman, surrounded by cute, polite, gentle and kind men around me.’ Only women are described as being harsh in office when they take a position.”
Rousseff, repeating her argument that efforts to impeach her amount to a coup, vowed not to back down. “I will fight to survive, not just for my term in office, but I will fight, because what I am advocating and defending is the democratic principle that governs political life in Brazil.”
The Olympic flame was lit in Greece, at the start of a 15-week journey that will culminate with the 5 August opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.
