Hardly any of the federal deputies in favour of impeachment gave the stated charges as their reason

ON SUNDAY April 17th the lower house of Brazil’s congress held a special session to vote on whether the president, Dilma Rousseff, should be put through an impeachment trial. The charge is that her government had fiddled government accounts, concealing their parlous state. But hardly any of the federal deputies who spoke in the raucous, viciously partisan televised special session even mentioned this. Instead, as opponents of impeachment assailed them as liars, thieves, bigots and coup-mongers, they cited a more eclectic bunch of reasons for their votes. Here is a small selection, translated by The Economist, from a list collated by Cecília Olliveira, an observer of Brazilian politics:

For the birthday of my granddaughter

For the foundations of Christianity

For Bruno and Felipe

For the Masons of Brazil

For rural producers, because if they don’t plant there will be neither lunch nor dinner

Because of the proposal that children can have sex-change procedures [while still] in school

To end the profitability of being unemployed or a layabout

For the congregation of the “Quadrangular” [an evangelical church]

For the aged and children

For an end to welfare dependency

For my mother Lucimar

For charismatic renewal

For Brazilian doctors

To put an end to CUT [the biggest Brazilian grouping of trade unions] and its no-good types

For the love of this country

For an end to the Petrobras scandal and those who profited from it

For the Republic of Curitiba [a Brazilian state capital; Sérgio Moro, the crusading judge leading the investigation into corruption at the state-controlled oil giant, Petrobras, hails from there]

In memory of my father

For Campo Grande [the state capital of Mato Grosso do Sul], the loveliest brunette of Brazil

For gun control

Because of the communism that threatens this country

For the fearless and pioneering people of the state of Rondônia

For BR 429 [an interstate highway]

For all the insurance brokers

For my unborn daughter Manoela

For my 93-year-old mother who is at home

In homage to my city’s founding day

For peace in Jerusalem

For the best state, Tocantins

For my mother, who at the moment is fighting for her life

For the sector that generates wealth: agribusiness

For my son Breno and my beloved military police of São Paulo

For the military of 1964 [who took control of Brazil in a coup]

So that we don’t become Reds like in Venezuela and North Korea

For my 78-year-old father who taught me the principles of the word of God

For Sandra, for Erica, for Vítor, for Jorge, and for my grandson who is on the way

For my state of São Paulo, governed for the past 20 years by honest politicians from my party

For my wife and my daughter, who are my principal electorate

As tribute to my only and true riches, my daughters

For an end to the “colonels” [the big landowners and rich families who effectively rule much of north and north-east Brazil]

For the armed forces who are now pensioners without a salary

In tribute to my father Roberto Jefferson [a Brazilian politician implicated in a massive political scandal in 2005]

For Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the Terror of Dilma [Colonel Brilhante Ustra was the chief torturer under the military dictatorship]

For street-dwellers who sleep on the street, are born on the street and die on the street

In order that no government stands against the nation of Israel

For science and technology

For my wife Mariana and daughter little Mariana

Against the Bolivarian dictatorship

For the truckers

For free men and morality

For the honour of the people of Minas Gerais [a Brazilian state]

For Canção Nova [a Catholic radio and television network]; for the Brazilians who live with drugs

For my aunt Eurides, who looked after me when I was small

For you, mum

For the libertarian traditions of Minas Gerais

I forgot to mention my son. For you, Paulo Henrique! Kiss!

For the cancer hospital

In tribute to the victims of BR 251 [an interstate highway]

To honour the flag of Minas Gerais

I am a leader of the majority; I am not a leader of the minority

Read The Economist's analysis of the vote here