Dilma Rousseff is about to be out of a job — at least temporarily.
An all-night Senate debate in Brazil ended with a decisive result: the country’s first female president must step aside while an impeachment trial against her gets underway.
That means Rousseff could be on the sidelines, fighting for her political future, when the Olympics come to Latin America’s largest country in August. Vice President Michel Temer will serve as interim president.
Speaking through the night, senators made their cases in a marathon session ahead of the electronic vote. Fifty-five of the 81 members of the upper house voted in favor of the motion early Thursday, with 22 voting against.
“IT’S A COUP,” Rousseff wrote on Facebook Thursday morning, posting a quote from the attorney general to back up a claim she’s been making for weeks as she mounts an aggressive defense in the court of public opinion.
The past few months have been a roller coaster for the embattled leader, who’s accused of breaking budget laws. And while there are some procedural steps we know are coming, given the country’s volatile political landscape, what will happen next is anyone’s guess.
Key moments to come
Rousseff retains her title as president by law, but she will not be fulfilling the duties of that office.
In the next few hours, Sen. Vicentinho Alves will deliver the Senate’s decision to Rousseff at her presidential office.
There, she will sign a notification telling her she needs to step aside for the duration of the impeachment trial. Government ministers and other authorities are expected to be there, too — along with Rousseff’s predecessor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
She will then address the media, and vacate the presidential office. Following that, she will return to the presidential residence, Palacio da Alvorada.
Pro-, anti-government protests
As the senators put forward their views, protesters in Brasilia, the capital, and in other cities demonstrated for and against the proceedings. Some of the protests — like the one in front of Congress in Brasilia — got out of hand, prompting authorities to disperse the crowds.
“It is revolting, we are here defending our democracy, and those yes-men spray us with tear gas, they are cowards,” one protester, Celma Pereira, a teacher, said.
15-minute soapbox
The senators were each given 15 minutes to speak, with a buzzer indicating when their time was up. Seventy-one of the house’s 81 members took the opportunity to have their voices heard.
Former President Fernando Collor de Mello, himself impeached by the senate in 1992, said he feels the country has “regressed politically.”
His colleague, Armando Monteiro, said that the impeachment was politically motivated and will set a dangerous precedent.
“We will, indeed, be promoting a rupture in the nation’s institutional order.”
Why was the motion against Rousseff considered?
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.
Sen. Waldemir Moka told the upper house during his allotted time that, if the impeachment trial is successful, the future president will assume a government with a 250 billion Brazilian Real debt ($72.5 billion) according to conservative projections, with the possibility of being up to 600 billion Real ($174 billion).
Olympic dreams shattered
The spell on the sidelines could put Rousseff out of commission when her country hosts the Olympics in August — a showcase event that she’s worked on with her predecessor since Brazil won its bid for the Games — and leaves her battling to save her political future and finish out her term.
A special Senate committee will now investigate the accusations against Rousseff. Once that committee is done — which could be as late as November — her team will have 20 days to present her defense. Following that, the committee will vote on a final determination and then present it for a vote in the full Senate.
It will take a two-thirds majority to remove the President from office.
Why is Brazil in such a mess?
Along with the precarious state of the Brazilian economy — the country faces a crippling recession that has left hundreds of thousands unemployed and thousands of businesses closed, while inflation has gone through the roof — the country faces a number of other, high-profile challenges, from dealing with the Zika virus to a fraught 2016 Olympics, which are due to open in Rio de Janeiro in August.
That’s if they even open. One doctor, Amir Attaran of the University of Toronto, says the risk of the virus in the city is too great, and has urged authorities to postpone or relocate the showcase event in an effort to curb the spread of the epidemic.
Meanwhile, former Brazil soccer legend Rivaldo has said the country is getting “more ugly” and has warned visitors to “stay away,” citing the violence in the city.
Whatever happens, it is unlikely to be an entirely smooth process. Rousseff’s supporters have vowed to take to the streets in retaliation, ensuring a long, and potentially messy, battle ahead.