By Ben Tavener
SAO PAULO
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said Tuesday that her government will "do everything" to hamper undemocratic movements, five days after opposition lawmakers launched an online movement unifying calls for her impeachment.
Speaking in Brasilia, Rousseff said the government was "aware" of attempts to "instill instability".
"Brazil won its democracy the hard way ... We will do everything to prevent undemocratic processes from growing and strengthening," she said.
The president's comments came after the launch of a new site, the Pro-Impeachment Parliamentary Movement, last Thursday, through which opposition and some coalition lawmakers aim to encourage members of Congress to join calls for Rousseff's impeachment.
The site was registered by the opposition DEM party, and more than 900,000 people have already signed up, according to the group.
Although the movement is being led by opposition political forces, the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reported that it had received support from some in government, including members of the PMDB -- Rousseff's biggest ally in the ruling coalition and the country's biggest political party.
Eduardo Cunha, a senior PMDB member and speaker of Brazil's lower house, is set to begin analyzing impeachment requests against Rousseff this week. Cunha recently announced he was joining the opposition, but has already said most requests will likely be thrown out.
Hundreds of thousands demonstrators have repeatedly taken to the streets this year to call for the president's impeachment for perceived economic mismanagement and a vast corruption scandal at state-run oil giant Petrobras, which has ensnared top political and business figures. Rousseff was chairwoman at the company while much of the wrongdoing allegedly took place, but has denied all knowledge and has been cleared by investigators.
Rousseff has been attempting to garner support in government for additional cuts and tax hikes totaling 65 billion reais ($17 billion), after Congress was handed a 2016 federal budget proposal last week with an unprecedented primary deficit.
The government wants to reinstate the so-called CPMF tax on financial transactions. The tax would be set at 0.2 percent and be levied for four years, Finance Minister Joaquim Levy said Monday. The government had already considered and dismissed reviving the unpopular levy, discontinued in 2007, ahead of the budget's delivery.
The new tax would boost government revenues by 32 billion reais next year, but congressional leaders told the G1 news portal that it would be "extremely difficult" to get Congress to approve the proposal.
It comes after Brazil was stripped of its prized investment-grade credit rating by U.S. ratings agency Standard & Poor's due to concerns about mounting political turmoil and a lack of governability to tackle growing debt.
Analysts believe the two other major agencies -- Fitch and Moody's -- could follow suit by the end of the year, with a double "junking" leading to catastrophic asset withdrawal by investors.
Economists surveyed by Brazil's central bank predicted Monday that the economy -- Latin America's largest -- would shrink by 2.55 percent this year and 0.6 percent in 2016, while inflation was forecast to reach 9.29 percent this year.
