Rousseff slams 'fascist' attempts to oust her

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff condemned the "fascist methods" of opponents seeking to oust her on Thursday and said the country's current political crisis would leave a "scar" if not resolved democratically.

In an interview with several foreign media groups, Rousseff said she was being pressured to resign because her rivals wanted "to avoid the difficulty of removing - unduly, illegally and criminally - a legitimately elected president from power".

She earlier ruled out stepping down despite mass protests and impeachment proceedings in Congress.

In the interview with The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais and Argentina's Pagina 12, Rousseff said any attempt to remove her without legal basis would represent a "coup".

"I am not comparing the coup here to the military coups of the past, but it would be a breaking of the democratic order of Brazil," she said, in comments reported by the Guardian.

She said any such move would "leave a deep scar on Brazilians' political life".

Rousseff, an ex-guerrilla tortured under Brazil's military dictatorship, said she was in favor of protests because she was from "a generation in which if you opened your mouth you could go to jail".

She said the estimated three million people who protested against her in the largest rally so far represented less than two percent of Brazil's population.

She painted her opponents as powerful elites opposed to the social changes that have swept Brazil in the past 13 years of left-wing government.

"Who stands to benefit from this?" she asked, according to The New York Times. "I can assure you that they're in the backstage of power."

The impeachment case is based on accusations that Rousseff doctored the government's accounts to boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign and hide the depth of a recession last year.

She denies her actions were illegal.

Her opponents are also seeking to link her to a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras, but investigators have not accused her and she vehemently denies involvement.

(China Daily 03/26/2016 page9)