In a historic move that ended 13 years of leftist rule in the biggest Latin American state, Brazil’s Senate voted on Thursday to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, who was immediately suspended for 180 days pending a trial for using accounting tricks to hide large deficits in the federal budget.
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He confirmed Temer would completely overhaul Rousseff’s cabinet, firing her ministers and naming a provisional list of at least 21 replacements – downsized from 32 under the suspended president. Nearly immediately, the president’s cabinet was criticized nationally and overseas for not including any women or people of color.
Supporters of the impeachment argue Temer could be the best bet for restoring growth to Brazil’s economy.
Another element to Brazil’s corruption is the Petrobras scandal – a wide-reaching set of allegations involving bribes and kickbacks from the government-affiliated oil company.
Protesters tried to invade the official presidential office, Planalto Palace, on Thursday afternoon as Temer introduced his cabinet.
Mr. Temer took the helm a few hours after Ms. Rousseff stepped down to face an impeachment trial in the Senate.
Rousseff, 68, was automatically suspended for the duration of the trial, which could be up to six months.
Henrique Meirelles is the key member of the Cabinet assembled by interim President Michel Temer, who has vowed to focus on pulling Brazil out of its worst recession since the 1930s. Ms. Rousseff has vowed to fight against her removal from office, although many think her chances of avoiding this are slim.
Picking up Brazil’s reins after the Senate voted to suspend President Dilma Rousseff, acting President Michel Temer pledged Thursday to jumpstart the stalled economy and push ahead with a sprawling corruption investigation that has already ensnared top leaders of his own party and even implicated Temer himself.
The vote result was widely expected and went 55-22 in favour of putting the country’s first woman president on trial.
Collor de Mello, now representing the center-right Christian Workers’ Party (PTC) in the Brazilian Senate, was accused of embezzling over 6.5 million dollars during his presidency between 1990 and 1992.
Rousseff said the actions amount to a coup and called herself a “victim of a great injustice”.
“I may have made mistakes but I did not commit any crime”, she said, according to Reuters.
“We are closely watching the development of the situation in Brazil”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily news briefing in Beijing.
The interim president assured that he would maintain social welfare and poverty relief programmes but said balancing the books through austerity measures and reducing inflation to below 10% were his priorities.
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But he warned: “Maintaining a social program doesn’t mean maintaining the misuse of a social program”. But three of his ministers are, and witnesses have implicated several others.
