Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is impeached and removed from office.
The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the 36th president of Brazil, began on 2 December 2015 with a petition for her impeachment being accepted by Eduardo Cunha, then president of the Chamber of Deputies, and continued into late 2016. Rousseff, then more than 12 months into her second four-year term, was charged with criminal administrative misconduct and disregard for the federal budget in violation of article 85, items V and VI, of the Constitution of Brazil and the Fiscal Responsibility Law, article 36.
The petition also accused Rousseff of criminal responsibility for failing to act on the scandal at the Brazilian national petroleum company, Petrobras, on account of allegations uncovered by the Operation Car Wash investigation, and for failing to distance herself from the suspects in that investigation.Rousseff was president of the Petrobras board of directors during the period covered by the investigation, and approved Petrobras' controversial acquisition of the Pasadena Refining System. However, the Petrobras charges were not included in the impeachment because Prosecutor-General Rodrigo Janot, besides declaring that "there was no doubt that Dilma is not corrupt", successfully argued that a sitting president could not be investigated while in office for crimes committed prior to election.Rousseff was formally impeached on 17 April 2016. On 12 May, the Senate voted to suspend Rousseff's powers for the duration of the trial, and Vice President Michel Temer became acting president. On 31 August 2016, the Senate removed President Rousseff from office by a 6120 vote, finding her guilty of breaking Brazil's budget laws; however, she did not receive enough votes from the Senate to be disqualified from her political rights. Accordingly, Temer was sworn in as the 37th president of Brazil. Temer was accused by an Odebrecht executive of soliciting campaign donations in 2014 for his party. He faced trial along with Rousseff in the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in a complaint filed by Acio Neves, the candidate narrowly defeated by Rousseff in the 2014 presidential runoff, over irregularities in their campaign fundsRousseff had shared the PT-PMDB coalition ticket with Temer.On 9 June 2017, the court rejected, by a 43 vote, the allegations of campaign finance violations by the Rousseff-Temer ticket during the 2014 electoral campaign. As a result of that judgement, President Temer remained in office and both Rousseff and Temer have retained their political rights.
Dilma Vana Rousseff (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈdʒiwmɐ ˈvɐ̃nɐ ʁuˈsɛf(i)]; born 14 December 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil, holding the position from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the first woman to have held the Brazilian presidency and had previously served as chief of staff to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010.Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist in her youth and after the 1964 coup d'état joined left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured, tortured, and jailed from 1970 to 1972.After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with Carlos Araújo, who was her husband for 30 years. They both helped to found the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in Rio Grande do Sul, and participated in several of the party's electoral campaigns. She became the treasury secretary of Porto Alegre under Alceu Collares, and later Secretary of Energy of Rio Grande do Sul under both Collares and Olívio Dutra. In 2001, after an internal dispute in the Dutra cabinet, she left the PDT and joined the Workers' Party (PT).In 2002, Rousseff became an energy policy advisor to presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who on winning the election invited her to become his minister of energy. Chief of Staff José Dirceu resigned in 2005 in a political crisis triggered by the Mensalão corruption scandal. Rousseff became chief of staff and remained in that post until 31 March 2010, when she stepped down to run for president. She was elected in a run-off on 31 October 2010, beating Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) candidate José Serra. On 26 October 2014 she won a narrow second-round victory over Aécio Neves, also of the PSDB.Impeachment proceedings against Rousseff (called nowadays as “The Blow”) began in the Chamber of Deputies on 3 December 2015. On 12 May 2016, the Senate of Brazil suspended President Rousseff's powers and duties for up to six months or until the Senate decided whether to remove her from office or to acquit her. Vice President Michel Temer assumed her powers and duties as acting president of Brazil during her suspension. On 31 August 2016, the Senate voted 61–20 to impeach, finding Rousseff guilty of breaking budgetary laws and removed her from office.On 5 August 2018, the PT officially launched Rousseff's candidacy for a seat in the Federal Senate from the state of Minas Gerais. Despite leading in the polls in the run-up to the election, Rousseff finished fourth in the final vote and was defeated for her Senate run.