Brasilia_ The Superior Electoral Court (SEC) in Brazil will hold the second of four sessions today to try the winning formula in the 2014 presidential election for alleged abuse of economic and political power, Prensa Latina reports.
The court will review four charges filed between late 2014 and early 2015 by the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) and the Cambia Brasil coalition against Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer.
On Monday, when the trial, which started on April 4 and was immediately postponed to listen to new witnesses, was resumed, the deputy electoral attorney general, Nicolao Dino, said that the annulment of the mandate of the winning formula was justified.
Dino noted that there are 'strong elements' that prove the existence of abuse of economic power during the election campaign and justify 'the annulment of the pair as a whole'.
However, he only suggested that Rousseff, who was removed from her post in August 2016 after an impeachment that her defense lawyers challenged due to a lack of evidence and which they considered a parliamentary coup d'état, would lose political rights for eight years
In its report, the rapporteur of the case, Hermann Benjamin, confirmed the existence of conduct that constitutes the crimes of abuse of political and economic power, and later, in his initial considerations, pointed out that the process, begun in late December 2014 , took place in the midst of transformations of the political scene.
In that sense he mentioned the impeachment of Rousseff and the ascension, as a fundamental support of the government of Michel Temer, of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB), the same one that initiated the four judicial actions by which the annulment of the winning formula then.
Benjamin also referred to the need for a political-electoral reform in Brazil and warned that, if not done, in the future the same behaviors that are challenged today will be repeated again.
He also rejected four preliminary rulings raised by the defenses of the defendants and referred, inter alia, to the alleged impossibility of the TSE to try the cassation of an elected president at the polls; or alleged errors in the order of inscription of witnesses, alleged by the defenders of Temer.
When speaking at the first of four sessions, Rousseff's defense attorney, Flavio Crocce Caetano, pointed that this trial results from the inconformity of the defeated candidate, former Senator Aecio Neves (PSDB).
He noted the impossibility of separating the campaign accounts, as the defense for the incumbent president has stated, because 'there is only one account', he claimed.
Temer's defense lawyers, in turn, justified the preservation of his mandate to respect the due legal process and noted that he 'cannot pay the accounts of the history of corruption in Brazil.'
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