Temer, 75, inherits a tattered economy along with the keys to the presidential palace in Brasilia, the nation’s capital.
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Renan Calheiros, the Senate president, rejected Rousseff’s claim of a coup, saying her impeachment might not have been flawless, but had “the DNA of democracy, the DNA of the constitution”.
Image provided by Brazil’s Presidency shows Michel Temer (C) making a thumb-up at his investiture ceremony as President of Brazil in Brasilia, Brazil, on August 31, 2016. Temer, a conservative who has run Brazil since Rousseff’s suspension in May, has the arduous task of pushing austerity measures in a bitterly divided nation. “I hope that in these two years and four months, we do what we have declared – put Brazil back on track”, he said.
A string of corruption scandals, led by the Petrobras scheme, has engulfed Brazil’s political class and business elites over the past 2.5 years.
So far he’s struggled in the almost four months he’s served as interim president following Rousseff’s May impeachment, which suspended her from office while a final trial was prepared.
He appeared tone-deaf with his first move in May: appointing an entirely white, male Cabinet to oversee a nation of 200 million people where more than 50 percent identify as black or mixed-race. Three of his ministers were forced to resign within weeks of taking their jobs because of corruption allegations, which also follow Temer and threaten his hold on power.
“Temer does not have legitimacy to govern this country”, she warned. Wednesday afternoon, only hours after the Senate impeachment vote, he will embark on the first of a series of global trips to attract investors and show the world that he is Brazil’s legitimate leader.
But by the time the pair was re-elected in 2014, the economy began to unravel and street protests erupted.
Prosecutors and judges uncovered a web of billions of dollars of kickbacks at the state oil giant Petrobras. The two-year probe has ensnared dozens of businessmen and politicians across the political spectrum.
Rousseff proclaimed her innocence to the end. Several of Temer’s top allies are implicated too. Temer denies wrongdoing and has not been charged.
“They have convicted an innocent person and carried out a parliamentary coup”, she said, defiantly vowing that she’d “be back”.
A new president has been sworn in in Brazil after Dilma Rousseff was removed from office.
In Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo, fireworks were let off after news of the vote emerged.
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Temer, who became interim president after Rousseff was suspended in May due to the impeachment process, has already tried to make some changes to fix the economy. Police fired tear gas at some supporters of the former leader in an attempt to quell the protests. The Senate chief, a member of Temer’s party, is under investigation for corruption as well. “That alone makes an impeachment process unlikely”, said Jose Luiz Niemeyer, a professor of worldwide relations at Ibmec, a Rio-based university.
