Rousseff Says Will 'Never Resign' as Brazil Scandal Escalates
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she had committed no crime and would never resign despite corruption allegations, as the scandal threatening her government escalated with dozens of new arrests.
In a defiant speech from the presidential palace, the leftist leader accused her opponents of seeking to stage a "coup against democracy," with impeachment proceedings and mass protests calling for her ouster, AFP reported.
"I will never resign," she told a cheering crowd of supporters. "Not under any circumstances."
Rousseff's presidency appears to be in peril as she fights impeachment, protests, recession and scandal.
And her decision to call her predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to the rescue backfired last week when a Supreme Court judge blocked his appointment as her chief of staff over pending corruption charges.
Lula, who presided over a booming Brazil from 2003 to 2011, faces money-laundering charges related to a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras that has unleashed a political crisis.
