Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was impeached “by the country’s corruption-tainted senate” after an impeachment trial that ends the Workers’ Party’s 13-year rule, The Guardian reports.
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Conservative Vice-President Michel Temer, who has deputized for socialist Rousseff since her de facto ouster three months ago, was sworn in as president later on Wednesday, and will serve out the remaining two years of her term.
Rousseff … Brazil’s first female president, was accused of breaking fiscal laws in her management of the federal budget.
Leftist leaders in Caracas, Quito, La Paz and San Salvador have been consistent allies of Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who said the United States was behind the impeachment push.
The impeachment of Brazil’s now-former President Dilma Rousseff was widely expected and the process, drawn out.
In a separate 42-36 vote, the Brazilian Senate has allowed Rousseff to maintain her political rights, and decided not to bar her from holding public office.
“Putschist is you”, he said, referring to Rousseff’s accusation that he had led the charge to oust her. However, the current centre-right PDMB party does enjoy as little support as the Workers’ Party since it is equally enmeshed in the Lava Jato scandal.
Rousseff first got involved in politics while opposing the 1964-1985 dictatorship as a militant of the Palmares Revolutionary Armed Vanguard. 54 votes were required to pass the second motion. It was a verdict on her leadership and the slipping fortunes of Latin America’s largest country.
“The will of 61 senators has replaced that of 54,5 million people who voted for me”.
“They were the ones in favor of the coup d’etat, when they proposed a constitutional rupture”, Mr. Temer said.
Senators – and Brazilians – knew that the question of condemning Ms Rousseff went beyond just deciding technically whether she was guilty or not. “In light of these exceptional events (impeachment process) the government of Ecuador made a decision to recall for consultation the person in charge, the current diplomatic chief for Ecuador in the Federation of the Republic of Brazil”, added Long. Its a process based exclusively on pretexts that will be judged by history, Workers Party Sen.
After becoming Brazil’s acting president in May, he set about naming his official cabinet, which ended up including nothing but white men “in a country that is more than 50% nonwhite”, according to USA Today.
Several polls have shown that Brazilians prefer new elections to solve the crisis.
The unexpected leniency toward Rousseff creates a precedent that could work in favor of legislators who are under investigation for various crimes and could have their mandates terminated, the aide said.
Venezuela and Ecuador both pulled their ambassadors from Brazil in protest at Rousseff s removal.
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Rousseff’s lawyer Jose Eduardo Cardozo said he would bring a legal challenge against the impeachment to the high court.
