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 Rousseff's attorney general, Jose Eduardo Cardozo, had asked the
top court for an injunction to suspend Sunday's lower house vote
until the full court can rule on what he called procedural flaws in
the impeachment process.
But the court dismissed the motion 8-2 during a session that ran
into the early hours.
Before the decision, a new survey by the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper
showed for the first time that Rousseff's opponents had already
secured the 342 lower house votes needed to advance impeachment.
Rousseff, an unpopular leader already struggling with Brazil's worst
economic crisis in decades and a spiraling corruption scandal, has
seen support from within her governing coalition steadily erode.
If her impeachment is approved by the required two-thirds majority
of 513 house members, the Senate must then vote on whether to go
ahead with putting Rousseff on trial for breaking budget laws.
That could clear the way for Rousseff's suspension and replacement
by Vice President Michel Temer as soon as early May, pending a trial
that could last six months.
Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla, had not been expected to
resort to the Supreme Court until after Sunday's vote. Cardozo's
request to the court was seen as a sign, even before the latest
newspaper survey, that her government now expects defeat.
CONTINUED POLITICAL TURMOIL
Vowing to fight to the end, Rousseff met with her political advisers
as her government scrambled for votes to block impeachment, but
defections by several centrist allies in her coalition have
seriously compromised that effort.
Brazil's largest political party, the president's main coalition
partner until it broke away two weeks ago, said most of its members
in the lower house will back deposing her.
Leonardo Picciani, the lower chamber leader for the party, the
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, told reporters that 90
percent of the 68 members of his caucus would vote for impeachment.
If Rousseff is ousted, it would end the 13-year rule of her leftist
Workers' Party, which has lifted millions of Brazilians out of
poverty and is overwhelmingly supported by the poor.
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Rousseff is not being investigated in the massive graft scandal
surrounding state-run oil company Petrobras that has reached into
her inner circle. She denies she broke budget laws, but opponents
allege that accounting tricks helped her win re-election in 2014 by
boosting public spending.
Temer, who would serve out Rousseff's term until 2018 if she is
ousted by the Senate, has little popular support. He would face a
daunting task restoring confidence in a country where dozens of
political leaders, including close associates of his, are under
investigation for corruption.
Rousseff's Workers' Party warned on Thursday that chaos will take
hold of Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, if its
democratically elected president is deposed.
"It's a mistake to think that overthrowing a government will bring
stability, peace, security and development," the party's leader, Rui
Falcao, told reporters in Brasilia. "Not respecting the popular vote
will plunge the country into chaos."
Cardozo, Rousseff's former justice minister and the government's
main legal adviser, has said previously that the impeachment process
was unconstitutional. In his appeal to the Supreme Court on
Thursday, he asked it to annul the report to the lower house by a
congressional committee that recommended impeachment on Monday.
He told a news conference Rousseff's defense had been obstructed in
the committee and that testimony from a former ally of the
president, Senator Delcidio Amaral, was obtained as part of a plea
bargain deal and should have been considered inadmissible.
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello, Marcela Ayres, Lisandra
Paraguassú and Anthony Boadle,; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Tom Brown
and Nick Macfie)
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