Brazil in chaos as coaltion partner threatens to walk out on president Rousseff

Brazil’s largest political party looks set to quit the government of leftist President Dilma Rousseff, in a move that would trigger the collapse of the coalition and push her closer to impeachment. Top figures indicated the break by the PMDB was all but final. "It will be an exit meeting, a goodbye to the government. We calculate we have a vote of more than 80 percent in favour of quitting,“ said PMDB member Osmar Terra.

There has been a series of dominoes falling, and it cannot be turned back. The government keeps trying, and offers jobs, but nobody believes it any more.

PMDB’s Oscar Terra

Rousseff, who is fighting recession, scandal, protests and the mounting push to impeach her, met PMDB ministers Monday to try to convince them to stay. But a spokesman for party leader Michel Temer – who is also Rousseff’s vice president and the man who will take power if she is impeached – said the only outstanding issue was a proposed April 12 deadline for cabinet members to leave the PMDB if they want to keep their jobs. Late Monday, a first PMDB minister did resign – it was Minister of Tourism Henrique Alves. Time, he said, "has run out” on the president. The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) filed a request on Monday to impeach Rousseff for obstructing justice, fiscal accounting tricks and granting international football body FIFA tax-exempt status during the 2014 World Cup.