Brazil’s Rousseff refuses ‘secondary role’ at Olympics

BRASILIA, Brazil – Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff said Monday, July 25, she will insist on being treated as the country’s president at the Olympic Games despite having been suspended for an impeachment trial.

Olympics organizers are contending with a tricky seating plan at the opening ceremony on August 5 in Rio de Janeiro.

Rousseff, suspended in May and facing final judgment shortly after the Olympics, is invited.

But so is her interim replacement and bitter political enemy Michel Temer, who stands to keep the job if she is definitively removed from office.

In an interview with the Portuguese service of France’s RFI radio, Rousseff said she expects to be treated as number one.

“I do not intend to take a secondary role in the Games in Rio,” she said.

Estadao newspaper recently reported that the invitation to Rousseff is similar to that sent out to several ex-presidents of Brazil, including her predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Fernando Collor de Mello and Jose Sarney.

Rousseff, from the leftist Workers’ Party, is accused of breaking government budget laws.

She says the charges are trumped up and insists she can survive the judgment vote in the Senate, due to be held days after the Games end. – Rappler.com