Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff 'indignant' over impeachment vote, vows not to resign

One day after Brazil's lower house of Congress voted to send impeachment proceedings to the Senate, President Dilma Rousseff called the move "violence against democracy" and said she has the "energy, strength, and courage to confront this injustice."

The first female president of Brazil said during a news conference Monday at the presidential palace that she is "indignant" over the vote, and she will not resign. Much of her ire was directed at Chamber of Deputies Speaker Eduardo Cunha, second in line to succeed Rousseff and the driving force behind the impeachment, The Associated Press reports. Cunha has been charged with taking $5 million in bribes as part of a corruption scheme involving the state-run Petrobras oil company, and Rousseff said she feels "wronged" because "there are no bribery accusations against me, no accusations that I accepted illicit payouts. I wasn't accused of having foreign bank accounts."

Her opponents say Rousseff used illegal accounting tricks before the last election, and she says the traditional ruling elite just want to take power back from her leftist Workers' Party. "Today more than anything, I feel wronged — wronged because this process doesn't have any legal basis," she said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up