President Dilma Rousseff was expected to become Brazil’s first leader in more than two decades to be removed from office as the Senate began a session on Wednesday that will vote on whether to try her for breaking budget rules.
If her opponents garner a simple majority in the 81-seat Senate, Ms Rousseff will be suspended for up to six months during her trial, ending 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule in Latin America’s largest economy.
Well over half of the senators have told newspapers that they will vote to try Ms Rousseff, and the first woman to lead Brazil is expected to depart the Planalto presidential palace on Thursday.
Senators started the voting session at mid-morning on Wednesday. Each member of the Upper House will get the chance to speak.
The final vote is expected to take place at around 0100 GMT (6.30 am India time) on Thursday.
The prospect of business-friendly vice-president Michel Temer taking power has driven Brazilian financial markets sharply higher in 2016, on hopes his team could cut a massive fiscal deficit and return the economy to growth.
Ms Rousseff has seen her popularity crushed by a long-running probe into a vast kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras, at a time when she was chairperson of the company, which has tainted her political allies.
The political crisis has deepened Brazil’s worst recession since the 1930s.
It comes less than two years after Ms Rousseff was narrowly reelected to a second four-year term and at a time when Brazil hoped to be shining on the world stage, as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August.
Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Brazilians want to see Ms Rousseff impeached. But the surveys also indicate scant popular support for Mr Temer.
“I voted for Dilma, I believe in her as a leader, but I also think she has done such a bad job that it is time for her to go,” said Leticia Britto, a 23-year-old business studen.
Mr Temer is expected to announce a new Cabinet as soon as Thursday. Leaning toward a liberal economic policy, he has picked former central bank chief Henrique Meirelles as finance minister and, according to local media, Itau Unibanco’s chief economist Ilan Goldfajn as head of the central bank.
