Monday, 18 April 2016

Brazil Congress Votes To Impeach President Dilma Rousseff

Brasilia: On Sunday, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff suffered a crushing defeat as congress voted to impeach her.
Fireworks lit up the night sky in Brazil's megacities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro after the opposition comfortably surpassed the two-thirds majority needed to send Rousseff for trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budget accounts. The floor of the lower house was a sea of Brazilian flags and pumping fists as dozens of lawmakers carried in their arms the deputy who cast the decisive 342nd vote, after three days of a marathon debate. The final tally was 367 votes cast in favor of impeachment, versus 137 against, and seven abstentions. Two lawmakers did not show up to vote.

The impeachment battle, waged during Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, has divided the country of 200 million people more deeply than at any time since the end of its military dictatorship in 1985. It has also sparked a bitter battle between the 68-year-old Rousseff and Vice-President Michel Temer, 75, that could destabilize any future government and plunge Brazil into months of uncertainty.
Despite anger at rising unemployment, Rousseff's Workers Party can still rely on support among millions of working-class Brazilians, who credit its welfare programs with pulling their families out of poverty during the past decade.
While she has not been accused of corruption, Rousseff's government has been tainted by a vast graft scandal at state oil company Petrobras and by the economic recession.


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