Brazil's sacked leader Rousseff to head home, fight on

[BRASÍLIA] Brazil's sacked ex-president Dilma Rousseff said on Friday she will abandon the presidential residence next week and continue the fight against her successor Michel Temer from her adopted hometown, Porto Alegre.

The 68-year-old leftist leader must leave the Alvorada official residence in Brasilia within a month after senators voted Wednesday to fire her over charges she illegally manipulated the national budget.

In her first media briefing since then, she repeated her claim that Brazil's new president Temer had led a "coup" in having her impeached.

Rousseff's lawyers have already lodged an appeal in the high court against the impeachment, which she says was a plot by Mr Temer, her former vice-president turned enemy.

"I will not stay in Brasilia. I will go to Porto Alegre... early next week," Rousseff told a briefing of foreign reporters.

"Democracy was on trial alongside me. Unfortunately, we lost," she said of the impeachment process.

"I hope that we can rebuild it and make sure that this never happens again." Rousseff was born in the southern central city of Belo Horizonte but built her political career further south in Porto Alegre.

Her daughter and grandchildren still live there and she keeps an apartment in the city.

Rousseff's impeachment ended 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers' Party.

Mr Temer is due to lead the country until the end of the current presidential term in 2018.

His government has announced plans to cut spending, notably on pensions, promising to create jobs and strengthen public finances.

The Workers' Party on Friday called for early elections to elect a new leader following the impeachment.

"Faced with a usurper government, we believe the only way to restore democracy in the country is through a popular vote," party chairman Rui Falcao told a news conference.

AFP