Bogota, May 6 (RHC-teleSUR)-- The Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Ernesto Samper, has expressed serious concern regarding efforts by Brazilian lawmakers to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.  In an official press release, Samper appealed to Brazilian senators and encouraged them to vote with their “conscience and in conjunction with the law.”

Samper said that the consequences of this are huge as a vote in favor of impeachment would seriously affect “regional democracy and hemispheric legal legitimacy.”  The UNASUR chief also warns that a potential impeachment scenario would set a "dangerous" precedent by criminalizing standard government budget management practices.

Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment over allegations that her administration violated budget rules in the lead up to her re-election in 2014.  Pressure began mounting on Dilma in 2015 after Brazil’s once impressive economy shrank by 3.8 percent, the biggest decline since 1981, and a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal was exposed in the country’s state-run oil company Petrobras.

But her potential impeachment is totally unrelated to her dealings with the state-run oil company.  Rather, Dilma is accused by her political opponents of breaking fiscal laws, which she strongly denies.