Rousseff reign comes to an end with impeachment

Brazil’s former President, who has been the head of the state since 2011, Dilma Rousseff, has finally got impeached by the Senate in an overwhelming majority. A historic end also came for her leftwing Workers’ party in Latin America’s largest economy. Celebrations could be seen across the country and fireworks could be heard all around São Paolo as the senators who voted against broke into singing the national anthem. Out of the 81 members, 61 voted in favor of her impeachment, while only 20 were against. The final decision came after long nine months of political haggling. In a speech after her impeachment, she called it a historic injustice and once again called it a coup against the people and vowed to continue her fighting. The acting President, Michel Temer will remain in office until the next election in 2018.

The impeachment vote was broken into two parts, one on whether the President should be removed from power and the other one on whether she should be punished by a ban of eight years over her rights to occupy public offices. While she lost the first one by big numbers, she survived the second one as 42 members voted in favor of her punishment. 54 votes were required to pass the second motion.

However, political uncertainty in Brazil is far from over. Brazilian assets including the exchange rate have made a major comeback this year over Rousseff’s trial, but many top politicians including President Michel Temer have also been named with regard to the corruption. Brazilian Real is currently trading at 3.23 per dollar.