Brazil impeachment must be settled by August 26

Brazil's political uncertainty must be resolved by the end of August -- its Olympic-hosting month -- by reaching a verdict in the impeachment trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, her interim replacement said Friday.

Michel Temer, the vice president who has been acting head of state since May, said he expected Rousseff would be definitively booted from office. That would make him president until the next elections in 2018.

His comments came during a briefing with international news agencies including AFP just one week before Brazil declares the 2016 Olympic Games open in Rio de Janeiro.

"The world needs to know who is the president" of Brazil, Temer said.

He argued an impeachment trial verdict was necessary for Brazil to decide who would represent it at a G20 summit in China on September 4 and 5.

"We are hoping that the resolution of the impeachment comes between August 25 and 26, because if it takes to September 4, 5 or 6, Brazil will not be able to go to the G20 summit," Temer said.

He said he was already "acting as if I will stay on" as president.

But he stressed that the procedure was entirely in the hands of the Brazilian Senate, which will decide Rousseff's fate by holding the impeachment trial.

Rousseff, from the leftist Workers' Party and the chosen heir of popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is accused of breaking government budget laws.

She says the charges are trumped up and insists she can survive the judgment vote in the Senate.

But the odds look stacked against her, and many analysts and observers believe it's likely the Senate will muster the two-third vote needed to strip her of the presidency.

She has accused Temer, of the center-right PMDB party, of treason by working with those against her.

Temer reaffirmed in the briefing that he had no intention of standing for election as president in 2018.

"I will not be the candidate" of the PMDB, he said.

Rousseff and Lula will both boycott the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games, which run August 5-21, aides said this week.

Rousseff told France's RFI radio network on Monday that she would not accept "a secondary role in the Games in Rio."

Temer is expected to preside over the Olympics as Brazil's interim leader.

Rousseff's popularity plunged in her second term starting 2014 amid a deep recession and an explosive corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras.

Officials on Friday said Lula will stand trial on charges of attempting to obstruct a probe into alleged graft involving Petrobras.

- 'Time to resolve this' -

In the briefing, Temer said it was "natural" that Brazil's political chaos created concern abroad.

"The time has come to resolve this and it will be resolved for the foreign relations we are going to promote after the impeachment," he said.

He asserted that measures he introduced since taking charge helped stabilize Brazil's limping economy.

"A certain confidence is coming back," he said, speaking in the presidential office in Brasilia.

Government statistics did not appear to back up his point -- official data released Friday showed Brazil's unemployment rate was 11.3 percent in the second quarter, up three percentage points from the same period last year.

Temer noted that "many people are waiting on the August process," notably investors.

"That's why the longer the process takes, the worse it will be for the country, and the earlier it is the better for the country."

Source: AFP