Brazil impeachment: how we got here, where we're going

Brazil's Senate is set to start voting on whether to open an impeachment trial against President Dilma Rousseff

BRASILIA: Brazil's Senate is set to start voting Wednesday on whether to open an impeachment trial against President Dilma Rousseff. If a simple majority is reached, she will be suspended automatically for six months and Brazil's political crisis will enter dramatic new territory.

But while Rousseff faces the possible end of her political career, Brazil's problems appear far from over. Here's a look at how Latin America's biggest country got into the mess -- and what could happen next.



The impeachment case against Brazil's first female president rests on charges that she illegally juggled government accounts and took state loans to mask the depth of shortfalls during her 2014 reelection.

She says that's not an impeachable offense -- that it was actually an accounting trick used consistently by previous governments.

But the impeachment drive is also fueled by massive disillusion in Brazil over a steep recession and revelations of a corruption network involving top politicians and business executives who colluded to steal from state oil company Petrobras.

Huge anti-government street rallies over the last year underlined that discontent.

Then the breakup of an uncomfortable coalition between her leftist Workers' Party and the center-right PMDB left Rousseff helpless when the lower house of Congress voted in April on sending her to the Senate for possible trial.

In an illustration of the growing instability in Brazil, the interim speaker of the lower house on Monday declared the lower chamber's original vote against Rousseff invalid and ordered the Senate to send her case back. The Senate leader flatly refused and the speaker eventually reversed his decision.



Now the 81 senators are set to start voting Wednesday on whether to open that trial. The process is expected to take about 20 hours, stretching into Thursday before a final vote count is in.

Only a simple majority is needed and analysts are near certain that the pro-impeachment camp will prevail.

That will trigger Rousseff's suspension for 180 days and Vice President Michel Temer, who has gone from coalition partner to principal opponent, would take over as acting president.

Rousseff would quit the executive offices but can stay in her presidential residence on half pay. Temer is expected to fire her ministers and install his own government.

A trial could take months to unfold, ending with a vote on whether to impeach the president. This time, a two thirds majority would be needed.

If Rousseff is removed from office, Temer would take her place until new elections scheduled for 2018.

Analysts are less certain about the outcome of the final vote, though most think it is more likely that Rousseff would be ejected.

The short answer is no.

A president who is highly unpopular would be gone. But few ordinary Brazilians see Temer as a savior, with a Datafolha poll in April finding only two percent of the country would vote for him in a presidential election.



The constitutional lawyer would face an enraged leftist opposition and much of the same mess that sank Rousseff, especially a floundering economy that grew too dependent on high oil and other commodity prices.

The Petrobras corruption scandal has also yet to play out.

Prosecutors are investigating everybody from Rousseff to another opposition leader, Aecio Neves. Temer has been named several times as a possible participant in the scheme, although there is currently no probe open against him.

Surprisingly, an electoral court has fined Temer for breaking campaign finance rules and he could be barred from running for public office for eight years. Entering the presidency via impeachment, however, wouldn't count.