Major parties in Brazil's governing coalition pressed the Supreme Court on Friday to overturn a Senate decision allowing former President Dilma Rousseff to remain politically active after her dismissal in an impeachment trial this week.
The Senate voted on Wednesday to remove Rousseff from office for manipulating the federal budget to hide the real state of Brazil's ailing economy in the run-up to her 2014 re-election.
In an unexpected separate vote, lawmakers spared the leftist leader from an eight-year ban on running for public office or holding any position in government, as provided for in Brazil's constitution.
"They did a last-minute legal trick and guaranteed the former president's political rights," Senator Jose Medeiros, of the Social Democratic Party, said on Friday. He spoke after filing a request to annul the second vote, which he said was unconstitutional.
His motion was joined by another from the Democrats party and the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, two heavyweights in the coalition assembled by the new President Michel Temer, following a similar motion by Green Party Senator Alvaro Dias on Thursday.
The head of the ruling Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, Romero Juca, also condemned on Twitter the Senate's vote separating the matter of Rousseff's ouster from her future political life.
Rousseff told a news conference that senators had voted for her to retain her political rights because they were undecided over whether charges she doctored official budget figures warranted her dismissal.
Rousseff, who has denied any wrongdoing, said she had no plans to run for elected office but would remain politically active in opposition to what she called the "illegitimate" government of her conservative former vice president.
