Brazilian President Rousseff's Allies Attempt to Block Impeachment Proceedings, Warns Supreme Court of Growing Political 'Storm'

Supporters of Brazil president, Dilma Rousseff, rallied together to impede the foregoing impeachment of the country's leader for allegedly manipulating government accounts.

According to The Guardian, members of the lower house of the biggest Latin American country's congress took a vote to appoint a committee that would decide whether or not to launch impeachment proceedings against her.

The outlet noted that the said group was largely composed of the Brazilian president's opponents, which led Rousseff's supporters to take action.

On Tuesday, the president's supporters attempted to block the creation of the committee that would launch the impeachment proceedings against her by smashing one electronic voting unit and unplugging the others.

Aside from physically impeding the secret ballot, Rousseff's Workers' Party appealed to the supreme court, emphasizing that starting an impeachment trial would only cause a political "storm" because of the "lack of procedural guarantees."

"The mere opening of the procedure is capable of causing a real political, administrative, economic and social storm, with international repercussions," the AFP (via Yahoo News) quoted.

But despite the delay that lasted for about 30 minutes, the result of the country's legislators vote came up with a 272-199 result, in favor of the establishment of an impeachment trial committee.

Despite this, The Guardian still believes that there is still a chance that supporters of the Brazilian president can block any impeachment proceedings, considering that she has the support of more than a third of all the members of the congress.

The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, cited analysts who see the delay in the impeachment proceedings as advantageous to the opposition, who are given more time to capitalize on the president's low and still declining approval ratings, thereby subjecting her to the scrutiny of the public.

"Analysts have said any delays in the proceedings would benefit the opposition, which would then have more time to capitalize on Ms. Rousseff's low approval ratings and promote mass demonstrations aimed at swinging lawmakers to vote for impeachment," the outlet explained.

Should the committee find any offense committed by the president, the congress will conduct a vote that requires two-thirds of the votes to be able to launch an impeachment trial.

Rousseff is accused of manipulating government accounts to hide an alleged budget gap in the 2014 and 2015 books, which is reportedly reflected in the country's economic decline.

According to WSJ, the country's economy is "shrinking" by 3.5 percent while inflation, as well as the unemployment rate, is at 10 percent.