BRAZIL PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSEFF TO FACE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is to face trial after the Senate voted to impeach and suspend her.

Rousseff is accused of illegally manipulating finances to hide a growing public deficit ahead of her re-election in 2014, which she denies.

Senators voted to suspend her by 55 votes to 22 after an all-night session that lasted more than 20 hours.

Vice-President Michel Temer will now assume the presidency while Rousseff’s trial takes place.

The trial may last up to 180 days, which would mean Rousseff would be suspended during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which start on 5 August.

Rousseff made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court to stop proceedings, but the move was rejected.

Speaking through the night, 71 of the chamber’s members spoke ahead of the electronic vote, which took hours and ended, ultimately, in Rousseff’s temporary removal from office.

Rousseff, the country’s first female president, will step aside immediately, and Vice President Michel Temer will assume the presidency for the time that Rousseff is obliged to step aside.

The past few months have been a roller coaster for the embattled premier, who has been at the center of a battle for her impeachment, including procedural and legal appeals to annul the vote heard.

The Senate and its committees will continue to work normally during this period.

As the Senators put forward their views, protesters in the capital Brasilia and other cities demonstrated for and against the proceedings. Some, like the protest in front of Congress in Brasilia got out of hand, prompting authorities to disperse the crowds.

Corruption allegations have been dogging Rousseff’s administration since 2011.

A sweeping investigation into a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme at the state-run oil company Petrobras embroiled dozens of the country’s leading businessmen and politicians.

While she isn’t accused directly of profiting, Rousseff was the chairwoman of Petrobras during many of the years of the alleged corruption.

In December, a bid to impeach Rousseff was launched by the then-speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, who argued that the president was guilty of breaking budgetary laws by borrowing from state banks to cover a shortfall in the deficit and pay for social programs in the run-up to her 2014 re-election.

She has been also blamed for the worst recession since the 1930s, now in its second year.

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