Dilma Rousseff takes impeachment fight to Supreme Court

Attorney general requests annulment of impeachment proceedings against Brazil's president.

Rousseff's party and labour unions have called for a national strike to resist what they call a "coup" against democracy [EPA]

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has taken her battle to survive impeachment to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to stay in office a day before the Senate is expected to vote to try her for breaking budget laws.

Brazil's Attorney General Eduardo Cardozo, the government's top lawyer, asked the Supreme Court to annul impeachment proceedings on Tuesday, his office said.

Cardozo's move comes ahead of a vote that could see Rousseff suspended from office for up to six months to stand trial.

Rousseff's opponents have more than the 41 votes needed to launch her trial in the upper chamber of the Congress, and they are confident they can muster two-thirds of the 81 senators, or 54, to unseat the president.

Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo, reporting from the capital Sao Paolo, said everything was ready in Brazil for the Senate session which will determine Rousseff's future.

"Many here say the attorney general's appeal to the Supreme Court to avoid the impeachment process is unlikely to change anything," she said.

"Rousseff said on Tuesday that she is not tired of this fight, but of those who have been disloyal to her, adding that what was happening in Brazil was a coup, asking people to defend democracy.”

Earlier on the same day, Waldir Maranhao, the acting speaker of the lower house of Congress, withdrew his controversial decision to annul last month's impeachment vote in the chamber.

Maranhao, a little known politician before taking over last week after the removal of Eduardo Cunha for obstruction of a corruption investigation, faces expulsion from his centre-right Progressive Party, which supports Rousseff's impeachment.

Anti-impeachment protesters blocked roads and burned tires in Sao Paulo and other cities early on Wednesday [Reuters]

As the prospect grew of Rousseff's removal and a potential end to 13 years of rule by her leftist Workers Party (PT), anti-impeachment protesters blocked roads and burned tires in Sao Paulo and other cities early on Wednesday. They snarled morning traffic and prompting clashes with police. 

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Al Jazeera that the Rousseff case exposed the flaws in Brazil's judiciary system.

"60 percent of the Congress is under some kind of scrutiny or investigation and when I think of all the major parties, the Worker Party, Dilma Rousseff's party is probably the least corrupt, although they had several corruption scandals within the Worker Party too," he said. "The whole system needs reform.