The 55-22 vote means that Rousseff’s ally-turned-enemy, Vice-President Michel Temer, will take over as acting president Thursday while she is suspended.
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Brazil’s new government, headed by acting President Michel Temer, said Friday it would cut government spending and audit social welfare programs for the poor as initial steps to reduce a large budget deficit and eventually lift the South American giant out of recession.
“Black people and women are fundamental if you truly want to construct an inclusive country”, Ms Rousseff said on Friday to journalists at the presidential palace, where she will continue to live during her impeachment trial.
Friday night saw another protest against the Senate’s decision to suspend Rousseff for up to 180 days and put her on trial for breaking budget laws.
Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer has pledged to build a “bridge to the future”, but the 75-year old lawyer has shocked much of the country by assembling a Cabinet that appears to have emerged from a previous century. Planning Minister Romero Juca said the new government chose the cabinet members “on technical criteria and political party affiliation”.
Temer is also vulnerable to the swirling scandal at state oil company Petrobras, which has snared top members of both his party, the PMDB, and Rousseff’s PT.
Analysts also say Rousseff got herself into trouble with a prickly manner and a perceived reticence to work with legislators that may have alienated possible allies.
“She has been suspended, but she continues to be president”.
And he will have to coexist with Rousseff, who will still be holed up in the presidential residence mounting her defense during an impeachment trial that could drag on for up to six months. “It’s urgent to pacify the nation and unify the country”, he said. He insisted the programs would be maintained and “perfected” under his leadership.
The makeup of Temer’s new cabinet also mirrors the profile of the Senate that voted to oust Rousseff.
The cables, dated January 11 and June 21, 2006, said Temer briefed the then USA consul general in Sao Paulo, Christopher McMullen, along with another unidentified political official.
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The economy has been predicted to contract almost 4 percent this year after an equally dismal 2015, and inflation and unemployment are hovering around 10 percent, underscoring a sharp decline after the South American giant had long enjoyed stellar growth. If two-thirds of the 81 senators vote to find her guilty, Temer will serve out the remainder of her term, which ends in December 2018. While she isn’t accused directly of profiting, Rousseff was the chairwoman of Petrobras during numerous years of the alleged corruption. Former House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, another top official in Temer’s Democratic Movement Party is facing charges in connection with the probe, and other top party brass are in being examined by investigators.
