Olympian exit for Prez Rousseff imminent

The Senate will now decide on opening a trial. She could be out of office months before the start of the Olympics. Fireworks lit up the night sky Sunday in Brazil’s mega-cities 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. 

If the Senate  votes by a simple majority in early May to proceed with the impeachment, as expected, Rousseff would be suspended from her post and be replaced by Vice President Michel Temer as acting president, pending her trial. Temer would serve out Rousseff’s term until 2018 if she is found guilty. 

Earlier on Sunday night, 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. Opposition deputies in the lower house of Congress needed 342 of the 513 votes, or a two thirds majority, to send Rousseff to the Senate, which they secured after hours of voting. Outside Congress, where tens of thousands of people were watching giant TV screens, the split was echoed on a mass scale, with opposition supporters partying and Rousseff loyalists in despair. 

Opinion polls suggest more than 60 percent of Brazilians support impeaching 68-year old Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, less than two years after she won re-election in 2014. 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.

In case the Senate decides on a trial, Rousseff would step down for 180 days while the trial got under way. Temer would inherit a country wallowing in its deepest recession in decades and a dysfunctional political scene where Rousseff’s Workers’ Party vows revenge.