Brazil’s besieged President Dilma Rousseff lost a major battle on Wednesday when the federal audit court rejected her government’s accounts from last year, paving the way for her opponents to try to impeach her.
In a unanimous vote, the Federal Accounts Court, known as the TCU, ruled that Rousseff’s government manipulated its accounts in 2014 to disguise a widening fiscal deficit as she campaigned for re-election.
The ruling, the TCU’s first against a Brazilian president in nearly 80 years, is not legally binding but it will be used by opposition lawmakers to argue for impeachment proceedings against the unpopular leftist leader in an increasingly hostile Congress.
Rousseff’s office said there were no legal grounds for the ruling and maintained in a statement that the audit court unduly penalized actions taken by her Workers’ Party government to maintain social programs for Brazil’s poor.
Opposition leaders hugged and cheered when the ruling was announced in Congress, though it was not clear whether they have enough support to impeach the president despite a widening corruption scandal engulfing state-oil firm Petrobras and Brazil’s deepest recession in 25 years.
Brazil Energy Insight 
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