Brazil’s lower house of Congress voted Monday to oust its former speaker Eduardo Cunha.
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Cunha, who denies any wrongdoing, handled his own defense at Monday’s session.
Cunha, who had been in his fourth term as a lawmaker, told his colleagues during the debate that the Rousseff impeachment effort was the reason for the drive to remove him.
“On the other side of the street, in the government palace, there are people trembling”, said Maria do Rosario, a congresswoman with Ms Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (PT).
But authorities in Switzerland later gave information to a corruption inquiry in Brazil stating that Mr Cunha and his wife, Claudia Cruz, were beneficiaries of secret accounts worth about $5m (£3.7m).
Cunha, who abandoned Rousseff’s coalition past year, initiated the impeachment proceedings in December against the then-president for manipulating public accounts.
Defending himself, he said he was “paying the price” of having led the impeachment against ex-leader Dilma Rousseff.
If he had remained speaker, Cunha would have been next in line for the presidency if anything happened to Temer.
About 60 percent of the 513 lawmakers in Brazil’s lower house are under investigation for various allegations, according to watchdog group Transparency Brazil. The Temer administration has previously promised contracts that are more attractive for companies by offering a more flexible timeline for investment requirements. “But as a natural side-effect it will also create jobs”, Temer said in a speech in Brasilia.
But after his success in delivering April’s vote to impeach, Mr Cunha’s position began to unravel quickly.
“They wanted a trophy”, Cunha said at a news conference. Leaving Congress in the early hours of Tuesday, he stopped to speak to reporters and deliver a last veiled threat, saying he planned to write a book that would contain “all the conversations” he had during the impeachment, adding, “I have a very good memory”.
With the loss of his congressional seat, Cunha also loses a legislator’s partial immunity from prosecution.
Cuhna’s expulsion from Brazil’s National Congress means he could now face arrest amid an investigation by the Supreme Federal Court. They allege he received millions of dollars in bribes. Some 50 politicians are already under investigation for taking kickbacks in the Petrobras scandal.
He was mentioned in the testimonies of several accused in the Petrobras corruption scandal as one of the politicians who took the most bribes.
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This post was syndicated from BusinessDay: News you can trust.
