Brazil’s Senate votes Tuesday on whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. (Global Panorama / CC BY-SA 2.0)



“I am deeply concerned,” Bernie Sanders’ recent statement begins, “by the current effort to remove Brazil’s democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff.”

Rousseff, who was elected in 2011 and re-elected in 2014, was suspended in May after a vote in the Brazilian Senate. That body is set to vote Tuesday on whether to proceed with an impeachment trial.

Read also: Overthrowing Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff: It’s Class War

In his powerful statement, Sanders said:

After suspending Brazil’s first female president on dubious grounds, without a mandate to govern, the new interim government abolished the ministry of women, racial equality and human rights. They immediately replaced a diverse and representative administration with a cabinet made up entirely of white men. The new, unelected administration quickly announced plans to impose austerity, increase privatization and install a far right-wing social agenda. The effort to remove President Rousseff is not a legal trial but rather a political one. The United States cannot sit silently while the democratic institutions of one of our most important allies are undermined. We must stand up for the working families of Brazil and demand that this dispute be settled with democratic elections.

Read the rest of Sanders’ statement here.

— Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata