Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has just been impeached by the Senate in a landslide vote following charges of fiscal mismanagement.
The Brazilian Senate voted 61-20 to impeach Ms. Rousseff after she tried to hide a growing budget deficit which is considered a federal offence in the Latin American country. Rousseff has since condemned her impeachment as a coup d’état set up by right wing groups.
Her presidency, which was in its second term was marred by allegations specifically relating to the Petrobras or Car Wash scandal which saw deep and systemic corruption being used for personal and political gain.
Political collaborations with contractors, police bribes, Swiss bank accounts, extravagant art collections and black market money deals are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of transactions, in this massive scandal involving the national oil company Petrobras, that has shook the political elite in Brazil.
Dilma Rousseff has been impeached—so what's next for #Brazil? @taylorlatam explains: https://t.co/Iopcy4Jgs3 pic.twitter.com/9UQkDnHHol
— Council on Foreign Relations (@CFR_org) August 31, 2016
While she was not charged of any wrongdoing for in this particular scandal, Rousseff served as the chairman of Petrobras between 2003 and 2010, when much of the corruption allegedly took place.
Petroleo Brasilerio is Brazil’s national oil company and one of the largest companies in Latin America. In 2007, they uncovered a massive deep-water offshore oil find, the biggest in decades and the Workers Party (PT) were keen to keep this discovery out of private hands.
The PT appointed themselves and their coalition partners to executive positions within the company and it emerged that board members were taking cuts of all deals made, sometimes up to 3% and lining their pockets. The figures amounted to billions of dollars because of the nature of highly lucrative oil deals.
This makes 3 statements against the impeachment of @dilmabr.
– Ecuador
– Venezuela
– Boliviahttps://t.co/yDV045cgw3— reported.ly (@reportedly) August 31, 2016
Rousseff was the first ever woman leader of the Workers’ Party, and during her first term as President fared well on opinion polls in terms of her policies which favoured the poor in Brazil, such as lowering taxes on food and the cost of electricity. However her government came under scrutiny for the lavish expenses associated with hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
Interim President Michel Temer, who served as vice president will now finish out Rousseff’s second term, which will end in 2018.
