Brazil President has been stripped of her presidential duties for at least six months after senators voted 55-22 to impeach her and put her on trial.
It is one of the saddest day in Brazil’s young democracy as majority of senators voted against the president who has been alleged for putting economic problems, political paralysis and alleged fiscal irregularities ahead of the 54 million votes that put her in office.
Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, will have to step aside for at least six months while she is tried in the upper house for allegedly manipulating government accounts ahead of the previous election. Her judges will be senators, many of whom are accused of more serious crimes.
The decision is likely to be more political than legal. She came in power back in 2010, she initially enjoyed some of the highest rating of any leader in the world.
But her popularity has slumped along with the economy, now in its deepest recession for decades.
Adding to her woes have been a fractious parliament and a massive corruption scandal at the state-run oil firm, Petrobras, that has implicated politicians across the spectrum, including many close aides and the former president Luiz Ináçio Lula da Silva.