The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil, began on 2 December 2015 with a petition for her impeachment being accepted by Eduardo Cunha, then president of the Chamber of Deputies, and continued into late 2016. Rousseff, then more than 12 months into her second four-year term, was charged with criminal administrative misconduct and disregard for the federal budget in violation of article 85, items V and VI, of the Constitution of Brazil and the Fiscal Responsibility Law, Article 36. The petition also accused Rousseff of criminal responsibility for failing to act on the scandal at the Brazilian national petroleum company, Petrobras, on account of allegations uncovered by the Operation Car Wash investigation, and for failing to distance herself from the suspects in that investigation.
Rousseff was president of the Petrobras board of directors during the period covered by the investigation, and approved Petrobras' controversial acquisition of the Pasadena Refining System. However, the Petrobras charges were not included in the impeachment because Prosecutor-General Rodrigo Janot, besides declaring that "there was no doubt that Dilma is not corrupt", successfully argued that a sitting president could not be investigated while in office for crimes committed prior to election.
Rousseff was formally impeached on 17 April 2016. On 12 May, the Senate voted to suspend Rousseff's powers for the duration of the trial, and Vice President Michel Temer became acting president. On 31 August 2016, the Senate removed President Rousseff from office by a 61–20 vote, finding her guilty of breaking Brazil's budget laws; however, she did not receive enough votes from the Senate to be disqualified from her political rights. Accordingly, Temer was sworn in as the 37th president of Brazil. Temer was accused by an Odebrecht executive of soliciting campaign donations in 2014 for his party. He faced trial along with Rousseff in the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in a complaint filed by Aécio Neves, the candidate narrowly defeated by Rousseff in the 2014 presidential runoff, over irregularities in their campaign funds—Rousseff had shared the PT-PMDB coalition ticket with Temer.
On 9 June 2017, the court rejected, by a 4–3 vote, the allegations of campaign finance violations by the Rousseff-Temer ticket during the 2014 electoral campaign. As a result of that judgement, President Temer remained in office and both Rousseff and Temer have retained their political rights.
Background
Petrobras and "fiscal pedalling"
Graft allegedly occurred during Rousseff's term as chair of the board of directors of the state-owned energy company Petrobras between 2003 and 2010. In February 2014, an investigation by the Federal Police, codenamed Operation Car Wash, put Petrobras at the center of "what may be the largest corruption scandal in Brazil's history". On 14 November 2014, police raids in six Brazilian states brought in several prominent Brazilian politicians and businessmen, including some Petrobras directors, who were investigated for "suspicious" contracts worth $22 billion. Further investigation also found offshore accounts and art collections held by those involved in the controversy.
However, no evidence that Rousseff herself was involved in the Petrobras controversy has been found and she has denied any prior knowledge of the scandal. More than one million Brazilians protested in the streets in March 2015 calling for Rousseff's impeachment. On 5 May 2016, Supreme Court justice Teori Zavascki dismissed counts brought against Rousseff by Senator Delcídio do Amaral based on the Petrobras controversy, ruling that a sitting president could not be investigated for actions taken before assuming office as had been argued by Prosecutor-General Rodrigo Janot.
Rousseff was also accused of fiscal pedaling in her administration—an accounting maneuver to give the false impression that more money was received than was spent. The government allegedly failed to fund public and private banks that managed public payments, including social assistance programs like Bolsa Família, forcing the banks to finance the programs themselves without compensation. The Rousseff Administration's budgeting allegedly used this pedaling to improve its fiscal outcomes and make the surplus for the years 2012 to 2014 appear larger. The Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), unanimously declared this maneuver a violation of fiscal responsibility. TCU, an auxiliary of the legislative body, has no legal power, but their decision put the National Congress under great pressure to begin impeachment proceedings.
Political context
Rousseff won the 2014 general election with 51.64% of the votes in one of the most contentious presidential elections in the country's history. Sworn in on 1 January 2015, Rousseff began her second term weakened by corruption allegations as well as the 2014–2016 Brazilian economic recession. On 15 March 2015, protests began, gathering millions of Brazilians across the country to demand among other things Rousseff's resignation or her impeachment. By June 2015 some polls reported her disapproval rating as high as 68%, the highest for any Brazilian president since the country's redemocratization, and by August 2015 this had risen to 71%.
Rousseff's government was accused by the TCU of misconduct in management of public accounts since 2012. The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, was investigated in Operation Car Wash for allegedly receiving bribes and keeping secret Swiss bank accounts. The Council of Ethics and Parliamentary Decorum of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil filed a complaint against him, putting him at risk of losing his seat. The council was responsible for judging and applying penalties to deputies in cases of non-compliance with norms. Rumors emerged about attempts between Cunha's party (PMDB) and Rousseff's party to reach an agreement: that she would archive the lawsuit against Cunha if he would refuse to accept the request for her impeachment. When the Workers' Party announced to the Council of Ethics its support for the lawsuit against Cunha, he accepted the impeachment request, allegedly in retaliation. Cunha dismissed that his decision was motivated by personal or political reasons.
In his defence, Cunha said that opening the impeachment process was his constitutional duty as chamber president, and the decision to do so was based only on facts related to the budget laws. Cunha said further that he had no personal grievance against the Workers' Party and that Rousseff had signed six decrees for additional spending, which had increased the 2015 federal spending in non-compliance with the annual budget law and without approval of the Congress.
Rousseff denied any attempted deal to save Cunha in return for stopping her impeachment, and also denied agreements to interfere with the Council of Ethics in exchange for approval of the re-introduction of the CPMF tax (Provisional Tax on Financial Transactions), which was a wish from the government. At a news conference on 2 December 2015, she said that she would never accept or agree to any kind of corrupt bargain.
I have received with indignation the decision by the head of the lower chamber to [launch] the impeachment process. There is no wrongful act committed by me, nor are there any suspicions that I have misused public money [...] The reasons given for this request [of impeachment] are inconsistent and unfounded. I have not committed any illicit act. My government performed all acts according to the principle of responsibility towards the public property, [...] I've committed no illicit act, there is no suspicion hanging over me of any misuse of public money. I don't have any offshore bank accounts, I have no hidden assets. [...] I would never accept any kind of bargain, much less those that threaten the free functioning of democratic institutions in this country.
After this pronouncement by the president, Cunha said Rousseff had lied to the nation when she said she would not participate in any deal and that her government had much to explain to the country. Cunha claimed he was not aware of any negotiations and that he had never met Jaques Wagner, the supposed intermediary in the alleged negotiations with Rousseff. Declaring his opposition to the Workers' Party, he said he would rather forgo their three votes in the Council of Ethics.
She lied on national television network and this is very serious. If she had not participated directly I would not speak.
Professor Leonardo Avritzer of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais told Agência Brasil in December 2015 that the political crisis was tied to Rousseff's inability to negotiate with Congress, and that Brazil's fragmented political system (and many political parties) had created an ungovernable government. According to him, the opposition confronting Rousseff after the 2014 elections calling for a recount and her disputed campaign accounts, culminating in the impeachment process, had been other major factors in the destabilization of the government. However, political scientist Luciana Veiga stated that, at that time, the process was benefiting Rousseff, who was now free from blackmail and could potentially reorganize her government. Veiga believed that Cunha could be removed from office and that the opposition would try to push the impeachment process of Rousseff in Congress for 2016 in order to mitigate the "electoral ecstasy" and "act of revenge" that were said to be the cause of the impeachment attempt.
In CNT/MDA polls conducted in March 2015, only 10.8% of Brazilians approved of Rousseff's government and 59.7% wanted her impeached. By July 2015, the latter number had risen to 62.8%. Similar data were collected by the Datafolha Institute in April 2016, showing that 61% of Brazilians believed that Rousseff should be impeached.
Request for impeachment
A total of 37 requests for the impeachment of Rousseff had been presented to the Chamber of Deputies from 2012 until her actual impeachment. Of these 23 were archived and did not proceed. The remaining 14 proceeded, but only one was accepted by Cunha. Submitted by former congressman and attorney Hélio Bicudo and attorneys Miguel Reale Júnior and Janaína Paschoal, it was based on allegations of omission concerning the Petrobras controversy, fiscal responsibility crimes, and budgetary mismanagement.
Omission
The illegal or suspicious transactions investigated by Operation Car Wash included the purchase of Pasadena Refinery by Petrobras, a deal that cost it R$792 million (US$362 million). Rousseff chaired the board of directors of Petrobras when the purchase was approved. She later said that a mistake had been made concerning a contractual clause and that "her decision was based on a technically and legally flawed summary" of the purchase document drawn up by Nestor Cerveró, the financial director of Petrobras Distribuidora (the fuel distribution and trading subsidiary of Petrobras). Petrobras paid Astra Oil, a wholly owned subsidiary of Astro Oil Trading NV, $360 million for 50% of Pasadena Refining System. A year later, Astra exercised a put option that required Petrobras to buy out the other half, then won the arbitration case over the deal. In May 2015, Cerveró was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to five years in jail. In April 2021, Rousseff was acquitted by the Brazilian Court of Accounts in a lawsuit over the purchase of the Pasadena refinery. The court considered that Rousseff had no responsibility in the purchase, as well as other former members of the board of directors.
According to the Request, the president called the allegations "a kind of coup and merely an attempt to weaken Petrobras". Emphasizing its expertise in the economy and energy sectors, the president stressed the company's financial health. She stepped down from the Petrobras board only in February 2015.
Some international companies were encouraged and, thereafter participated in unrealistic bids to drain the state-owned company, giving back much of the value through illicit contracts. According to the Request, a person with knowledge of the Petrobras accounts should to evaluate, as a company staff member, the overbilling in approved contracts. It was alleged that statements taken from the accused in Operation Car Wash suggested that Lula and Rousseff had known of the bribery scheme in Petrobras.
Fiscal responsibility crimes
Rousseff issued six unnumbered decrees in 2014 and 2015 that allocated funds to social programs, allegedly for political purposes, without authorization from Congress. These totaled R$18.5 billion (US$6.9 billion) and were contracted in official financial institutions with neither the necessary legislative authorization, nor targets which complied with the Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (Fiscal Responsibility Law) and the Annual Budgetary Law. To obtain these additional credits, the target of 2014 was reduced by the end of 2014 by R$67 billion (US$25 billion) at the request of the president. Rousseff allegedly committed similar crimes of fiscal irresponsibility in 2015. She further issued such decrees in the years 2014 and 2015 to authorize the opening credit precisely to, purportedly, allow the provision of additional resources despite it being known that the primary superavit target in the budget forecast was not being fulfilled, and would not be fulfilled, hence disregarding the Annual Budgetary Law and the Federal Constitution.
"Fiscal pedaling"
In 2011 and 2014, Rousseff's government is said to have held illegal credit operations, using funds from the state-owned banks Caixa Econômica Federal and Banco do Brasil to finance social programs without officially declaring loans from either of those banks, an example of fiscal pedaling. These transactions were reported in 2015 by the TCU and, according to the report, were undertaken in order to improve the government's chances of re-election.