THE suspension of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is a coup against the elected government of Latin America’s largest country.

The case against Ms Rousseff is nakedly political. The Workers Party leader and former freedom fighter is not accused of corruption — unlike more than half of Brazil’s MPs and the crooked vice-president who is stepping into her shoes.

Rather she is accused of manipulating budgetary rules to maintain public spending on social projects in defiance of neoliberal regulations demanding annual budget surpluses.

As she has repeatedly pointed out, previous presidents have done the same without anyone suggesting it was illegal.

Her removal on these flimsy grounds hands the presidency to Michel Temer, who, aside from being implicated in the Petrobras scandal, is not from the same party as Ms Rousseff and is swearing in an entirely new cabinet.

He makes no secret of his determination to reverse the Workers Party’s socialist policies and embark on a “new era” of privatisation and cuts — precisely what Brazil’s people rejected when Ms Rousseff was re-elected 18 months ago.

Brazil’s new president has no democratic legitimacy. The Workers Party and its allies are justified in their fight to get their country’s leader back.