Brazil Senate debates impeachment

Brazil's Senate has begun to debate whether President Dilma Rousseff should face a full impeachment trial.

If a simple majority votes in favour, as is expected, Ms Rousseff will be automatically suspended from office.

Ahead of the vote, Ms Rousseff asked the Supreme Court to block proceedings against her, citing irregularities.

The president is accused of illegally manipulating finances to hide a growing public deficit ahead of her re-election in 2014, which she denies.

The move to impeach President Rousseff has divided Brazil. On Tuesday, her supporters set up burning barricades and blocked roads, causing widespread disruption across all Brazilian states.

• Anxiety over benefits for Brazil's poor

• Crisis timeline

• How did Brazil get here?

• Rousseff fights on

• Could Rousseff be impeached?

• Who could replace Rousseff?

Wednesday's debate started an hour late. Senate President Renan Calheiros warned: "There won't be changes; the session will be conducted with absolute normality. Any delay won't be good for Brazil."

Senator Gleisi Hoffman, a former chief of staff to Ms Rousseff, called the proceedings "unjust".

"The legal procedures that are going to be used here today to achieve the removal of President Dilma (Rousseff) would not be used against any other governing politician. They were created exclusively to annul the results of the last election," she said.

A critical moment: Analysis by Wyre Davies, BBC Brazil correspondent

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (centre) has vowed to fight to the end

What has been a long, damaging and divisive political process is at a critical moment as the 81 members of the Brazilian Senate prepare to vote on whether or not to subject Dilma Rousseff to a full impeachment trial.

The beleaguered president denies the charges against her - that she illegally concealed the scale of the budget deficit. Brazil's first female leader says that what is really happening, first in the lower house of Congress and now in the Senate, is a judicial coup by her political opponents to remove her from office.

Whatever the real reasons for impeachment, there is no doubt that Ms Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party is deeply unpopular, with Brazil in the middle of an economic crisis and her government embroiled in a huge corruption scandal.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Ms Rousseff appeared to acknowledge that she would be suspended pending an impeachment trial but she said would fight to clear her name and fully intended to resume the final two years of her presidency.

If the vote goes in favour of a trial, Ms Rousseff will be replaced by Vice-President Michel Temer while the trial lasts.

She says Mr Temer is a traitor who is taking part in a political coup against her democratically elected government.

Senate President Mr Calheiros has said he wants the vote to happen on Wednesday evening.

President Rousseff could be out of office by the end of Wednesday, if the Senate vote goes against her

Rousseff supporters set up burning barricades in Sao Paulo and dozens of other Brazilian cities

Brazil's Attorney General Eduardo Cardozo, the government's top lawyer, said on Tuesday that the Supreme Court should annul impeachment proceedings, arguing that they were politically motivated.

The court is considering the appeal, but it is not known when a ruling will be issued. Similar attempts have been rejected by the court.

Meanwhile, Ms Rousseff promised to fight to the end.

"I will not resign. That never crossed my mind," she said during a speech at a women's rights conference in the capital Brasilia on Tuesday.

Waldir Maranhao, acting Speaker of the lower house of Congress, caused fresh surprise on Tuesday when, less than 24 hours after suspending a vote in the chamber that had allowed the impeachment process to go ahead, he reversed his decision.

Previously he had argued that the 17 April vote had breached Congress rules. Members had voted overwhelmingly in favour of the impeachment process going ahead.

Rousseff opponents also rallied on Tuesday, with some in the crowd holding mock coffins