A simple majority of 41 votes was needed to put Brazil’s first female president on trial.
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It pointed out that the impeachment is “likely to deepen Brazil’s political crisis at a time when the country needs a stable administration to cope with the enormous challenges it faces, especially the current economic crisis, and chronic corruption”.
Brazil’s acting President Michel Temer assumes office Thursday after Dilma Rousseff’s suspension.
The margin of the vote in the Senate to suspend her, 55 to 22, showed Temer’s government now has support in Congress needed for a series of tough economic reforms, Padilha said.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro late Friday decried the “coup d’etat” against Rousseff, and said that he called his ambassador in “to evaluate this painful page in the history of Brazil”.
Temer aides said the incoming government would announce a series of austerity measures to help reduce a massive budget deficit.
But the choice of Henrique Eduardo Alves to head the Tourism Ministry and Gilberto Kassab to lead the Science, Technology and Communications portfolio came as surprises since both men had been part of Rousseff’s Cabinet until just a few weeks ago.
He told his first news conference that the word Brazilians should take care of was “trust”.
The Senate has 180 days to conduct a trial and decide whether Rousseff should be permanently removed from office.
Temer has been criticized for making clear his intention of pursuing a pro-business, neoliberal program as president, despite the fact that Rousseff and her Workers’ Party were reelected on the basis of a progressive program of social investment and wealth redistribution.
Temer, of the centrist Democratic Movement Party, has said he would expand popular social welfare programs, though he has also signaled he would reduce government spending and privatize many state-run companies.
“We don’t have much time”, Temer, a veteran of the center-right PMDB party, said on taking office.
Rousseff’s predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, made him central bank chief to calm market fears over the implications a leftist presidency would have for the Brazilian economy.
There has already been criticism and controversy over some of Mr. Temer’s appointments, most notably Blairo Maggi, otherwise known as the “soya bean king” who was given control of the top agriculture post, despite his attempts to weaken environmental licensing laws, to the ire of conservationists.
But like other leftist leaders across the region, Rousseff discovered that the party, after four consecutive terms, overstayed its welcome, especially as commodities prices plummeted and her increasingly unpopular government failed to sustain economic growth.
Several of Mr Temer’s Cabinet appointees have also been hit with corruption charges and other allegations.
She said she would continue to speak out against impeachment proceedings she has denounced as a “farce” and “sabotage”.
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Opponents say the administration’s maneuvering of funds was illegal and an attempt to mask problems that exacerbated the recession, such as huge budget gaps that have surfaced over the past year.
