'Wronged and betrayed' Rousseff defends her record

It is, to many observers, abundantly clear that Dilma Rousseff does not enjoy frontline politics. 

The Brazilian president is ideologically driven, intelligent and committed to her mandate.

But, compared to the tact and political nous of her predecessor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the current incumbent of the presidential palace in Brasilia casts a lonely figure, reluctant to immerse herself in the deal-making, opportunistic world of Brazilian politics.

Dilma Rousseff looks down, but she insists she is not out

Even some of her allies agree that, although re-elected as president two years ago, Ms Rousseff has not been a particularly great or successful leader.

Brazil's first female president is going through one of the most difficult periods of her political life.
This week she walked out slowly, barely managing a smile, before the foreign media in Brasilia.

The make-up could not conceal the tired lines on the face of a woman who feels she is being wronged and betrayed by a misogynistic, treacherous Congress.
She looks down, but Dilma Rousseff insists she is not out.

"More than 50 million people voted for me so my political enemies, who couldn't accept defeat at the polls, have been plotting against me from day one," said Ms Rousseff in a long defence of her record.

The formal charges against the president are that she used a series of (well-established) financial tricks to conceal the size of the budget deficit in the run up to elections.

During the cut and thrust of the three-day-long Congressional debate on impeachment and the subsequent vote, Dilma Rousseff was hardly seen in public.

She cancelled a scheduled appearance at a rally in Brasilia, disappointing many of her supporters who had travelled extremely long distances (mainly by bus) to keep vigil outside Congress as the results of the impeachment vote came in.

The official reason for impeachment was mentioned by barely a handful of deputies as they voted.
Few observers were left in any doubt that this was, in reality, a vote of confidence in Dilma Rousseff's inability to tackle Brazil's worsening economic crisis.

Now, in the days following her humiliating defeat by more than two-thirds of the 513-member Congress, the woman who could be in the last weeks of her presidency and is facing the probability of a full impeachment trial in the Senate, has belatedly been giving a detailed rejection of the charges against her.
But it all feels rather too late.

Source: BBC News