Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, who is facing impeachment, has condemned, what she says is a conspiracy to overthrow her, indicating that the vice president is one of its leaders, Euronews reports.
In an address to her supporters, she said a coup was being organized against her, but they rallied behind her saying they would not allow her to be ousted.
"If there was any doubt about the coup, the farce and the betrayal that is underway, there is no more. If there was any doubt about my denunciation that there is a coup d'etat under way, there cannot be anymore (…) Yesterday it was clear that there are two leaders of the coup that are acting together and in a premeditated way," asserted Rousseff.
She did not mentioned their names, but it is a sort of a public secret those figures involve Eduardo Cunha, the lower house Speaker and Vice President Michel Temer, whom Rousseff suspects as being one of the key leaders.
On Monday, Brazil saw a chaotic congressional committee vote in which it was agreed to recommend proceeding with the impeachment procedure. The chief of state now faces a vote at the weekend in the full lower Congressional House on the impeachment matter.
However, prior to the Monday vote, Michel Temer released an audio tape in which he spoke as if the president had already been removed. He appeared as if he was preparing to take over from Rousseff and was calling for a government of national unity.
Both Temer and Eduardo Cunha are members of the PMDB Party, formally Rouseff’s main coalition ally. But the party withdrew from the government last month.
Rousseff is believed to have breached the budget laws, in order to get reelected in 2014, a charge Rousseff argues has been set up to remove her from office.
The full lower house of Congress will discuss Rousseff’s impeachment starting on April 15, with a vote on April 17/18 on whether the impeachment process should proceed.
If two thirds vote in favor, the issue will be discussed in the upper house, the Senate.
The Senate will then have to vote and if in favor of impeachment a trial headed by the Supreme Court will go ahead.
Finally, the Senate will vote on whether to impeach Dilma Rousseff.