Alwaght- Brazilian lawyers have called for the impeachment of the country's president Michel Temer over incriminating evidence of corruption.
Local media reports say the Order of Attorneys of Brazil, known by its Portuguese acronym OAB Federal Council voted in favor of the decision in the early hours of Sunday morning. While 25 members of the council voted in favor of Temer's impeachment, only one vote was made against and one abstained.
Each vote corresponds to the OAB's head representative in each Brazilian state. The request is expected to be filed with Brazil's lower house of Congress in the coming days.
According to the commission, Temer's crimes are well defined. He “lacked decorum and disobeyed the Public Servant Law” when meeting with Joesley Batista, owner of Brazilian meat company JBS, the report argued. The bar association's decision comes after the release of a wiretap that revealed that Temer, in a meeting with Batista, discussed hush money being paid to Eduardo Cunha, former speaker of Brazil's lower house of representatives, so that embarrassing crimes jeopardizing the legitimacy of Temer's presidency would remain secret. Temer's response to those bribes was simply, “Look, you've got to keep that up.”
Despite his attempts to ward off ever-increasing calls for his resignation, Temer finds himself isolated, battered. Even prior to this scandal, an ever-growing number of social movements, organized by Popular Brasil Front, other trade unions, and People Without Fear, have summoned mass mobilizations that will result in a civic occupation of Brasilia called Occupy Brasilia on Wednesday, May 24.
According to Brasil de Fato, Occupy Brasilia was scheduled prior to the release of a wiretap which implicated Temer in a string of bribes.
Tremer led the impeachment of ex-President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office May last year after the Senate voted to put her on trial for breaking budget laws.
Rousseff, speaking after being notified of her suspension said, "I may have made mistakes but I did not commit any crime." She called the impeachment "fraudulent" and "a coup."
Temer, who took office in August 2016, also faces accusations of being a US protégé after WikiLeaks documents showed he previously spied for the US spy agencies in the country.
According to the whistleblowing website, Temer communicated with the US embassy in Brazil via telegram, and such content would be classified as "sensitive" and "for official use only.
