Lawmakers voted 61-20 Wednesday to remove Rousseff from office, finding her guilty of breaking budgetary laws in an impeachment trial.
Advertisement
The Federal Court of Accounts, which is also known as TCU, unanimously ruled against Rousseff in October 2015, saying her government had manipulated its accounts in 2014 to disguise a widening fiscal deficit.
Leftist leaders in Caracas, Quito, La Paz and San Salvador have been consistent allies of Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who said the United States was behind the impeachment push.
Yesterday’s impeachment vote against Dilma Rousseff put an end to the uncertainty regarding who will serve as Brazil’s president until 2018.
The biggest political scandal in Latin America ran the risk of being largely ignored by the mainstream mass media in Russia, had Rousseff not exhibited her passion for Russian poetry.
The senate also decided not to ban her from public office for eight years in a different vote.
“From today on, the expectations are much higher for the government”, Temer said. Some of her accusers, as Rousseff noted in her testimony, are themselves accused or convicted of serious corruption charges. “This follows secret recordings of Romero Jucá, the majority leader of the senate and a key Temer ally, plotting to remove the president to halt the Lava Jato (car wash) investigation into kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras”.
President Michel Temer waves as he takes office before the plenary of the Brazilian Senate in Brasilia, on August 31, 2016.
Rousseff has won all of her elections but support from the population and Congress dropped after the economy started declining.
In Sao Paulo, riot police fired tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters. It’s a political crisis that ordinary Brazilians could do well without as the country, which just hosted the Summer Olympics in Rio, is trying to pull itself out of recession. “Without the reform, in a few years the government will be unable to pay the retired citizens’ pensions”, he said. “We are not going to China to stroll around”, he said, elaborating that the trip will be used to create business opportunities with other countries and draw investment towards the South American country.
Advertisement
Speaking to supporters at the presidential residence, Rousseff promised to mount a strong opposition, but didn’t elaborate.
