BRASILIA, Brazil — A weekend vote by Brazilian lawmakers to impeach President Dilma Rousseff was only one step in the push to unseat her. But the lopsided tally sent a resounding message about the depths of her political collapse.
The lower house of the National Congress voted 367-137 in favor of impeachment Sunday night. The fight now shifts to Brazil’s Senate — and possibly to its streets, where Rousseff’s Workers Party will try to show it has some muscle.
But the tally in Sunday’s vote does not bode well for Rousseff’s survival.
The president adamantly denies committing any impeachable offense, and she and her supporters equate the process with a “coup attempt.”
The televised vote Sunday looked more like a public hanging. Lawmakers lined up on the floor of parliament to denounce her in a six-hour spectacle, then celebrated the final tally with taunts of “bye-bye darling.”
The sight left little doubt that Rousseff would not be in this predicament if she were not so widely disliked, blamed for the worst economic crisis in 80 years and compounding corruption scandals. Whether or not that unpopularity is a good reason to cut short her presidency is the question Brazilians are struggling with.
Senators will decide, possibly as soon as next month, whether to accept the lower chamber’s motion to open impeachment proceedings against her.
If the measure wins a simple majority in the 81-member Senate, Rousseff will be suspended and the Senate essentially will turn into a courtroom. Members would have 180 days to decide Rousseff’s fate, with a two-thirds majority needed to remove her.
Rousseff is not accused of personal corruption but of political trickery by allegedly manipulating public accounts to hide her administration’s budget woes. She would be the second Brazilian president impeached since the return of democracy in 1985 after 21 years of military rule; former President Fernando Collor de Mello was impeached in 1992.
Mathieu Turgeon, a professor of political science at the University of Brasilia, said the process “may bring short-term relief to a struggling economy and a dysfunctional government,” but it might end up undermining democratic stability in the long run.
“It carries very undesirable consequences for the consolidation of Brazil’s democratic institutions because she is being impeached on weak grounds,” Turgeon said. Her accounting maneuvers were “a common and tolerated practice used by former presidents and current governors,” he said.
Rousseff’s removal is unlikely to lead to further economic instability. Global financial markets have demonstrated a preference for her vice president, Michel Temer.
