Brazil’s senate has voted to go forward with impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff that were put in motion in April by the country’s lower legislative chamber, a move that will remove Rousseff from office while she is put on trial. Rousseff is not accused of personal misconduct, but rather of using state banks improperly to cover a budget shortfall; the New York Times wrote in April that it’s not clear that what she did was criminal behavior, and some in Brazil believe that she is being charged simply because she is extremely unpopular (the country is in a dire recession) and leads a party that is resented by national elites.
From the Times:
During her impeachment trial, which could last six months, Ms. Rousseff will be replaced by a onetime ally, Vice President Michel Temer, who has been convicted of violating campaign finance limits and will now be under tremendous pressure to stem Brazil’s worst economic crisis in decades.
You read that right: The friend-turned-enemy who will be replacing her has himself recently been sanctioned for a shady financial transaction. (He’s also a 75-year-old man whose third wife is 42 years younger than he is. They started dating when she was a teenager.) And the politician who led the impeachment movement against Rousseff in the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, was recently ordered to step down because of accusations that he took up to $40 million in bribes. Cunha’s replacement is also accused of corruption, as is the leader of the country’s Senate. (Rousseff’s allies aren’t clean either.)
Rousseff will fight the charges, but her chances don’t look good:
Describing the effort to remove her as a coup, Ms. Rousseff, the first woman to be president of Brazil, has repeatedly rejected calls to resign, vowing to continue her fight to stay at the helm of Latin America’s largest country, the world’s fifth-most populous.
But given the margin of opposition against her on Thursday, political analysts said she stood little chance of winning the trial and finishing the remaining two and a half years of her final term in office.
Brazil is also, of course, the epicenter of the Zika crisis. Meanwhile, the Summer Olympics start in Rio on Aug. 5.
