According to the minister of the Federal Supreme Court, Luiz Roberto Barroso, the lack of political support in Parliament removed former president Dilma Rousseff from the Executive. | Photo: ptnosenado.org.br

Brasilia, February 4 (RHC)-- The magistrate of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and president of Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Luiz Roberto Barroso, said Thursday that the real reason for the impeachment trial against former President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 was the lack of political support and not "fiscal pedaling" (violation of budgetary rules) alleged at the time by the Brazilian right wing.

Barroso reiterated the criterion, already expressed in 2021, that the alleged corruption was not real and that the allegations in this regard were nothing more than a legal formality, which supports that a legislative coup d'état was perpetrated against the president by opposition sectors.

The magistrate also affirmed that, paradoxically, Rousseff's successor, former president Michel Temer, promoted a neoliberal agenda and his administration was also stained by real cases of corruption, but he was allowed to finish his term in office.

These statements were included in a publication of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (Cebri), and excerpts of them were published by local media, although the full text has not been released.

In the opinion of former Senator Romero Jucá, what happened in Brazil was "a coup with the Supreme Court, with everything."   According to local media, a parliamentary coup was executed through a process of impeachment without a crime of responsibility, an illegality that should have been faced by the Supreme Federal Court, which it did not do.

In July 2021, Barroso had already exposed this statement in the framework of a symposium where he said: "I believe that there should be no reasonable doubt that she (Dilma) was not impeached for crimes of responsibility or corruption, but that she was impeached for loss of political support.  Especially because to remove her for corruption after what followed would be an irony of history."

After the impeachment of former president Rousseff, Brazil regressed in economic and social indicators, workers lost their rights, income rents were transferred from society to private shareholders, especially international ones.