Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff

Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff
From top, left to right: Rousseff is announced as the Workers' Party candidate for President; Rousseff is elected President in 2010; President of the Chamber, Eduardo Cunha, announces the opening of an impeachment process in December 2015; Rousseff gives a speech during her second inauguration in January 2015; Rousseff, as suspended President, during her trial in the Senate; Monumental Axis in Brasília at the day of the impeachment voting; Rousseff gives a speech after her removal from office.
Accused	Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil
Proponents	Hélio Bicudo Miguel Reale Júnior Janaína Paschoal
Date	2 December 2015 – 31 August 2016 (8 months, 4 weeks and 1 day)
Outcome	Convicted by the Federal Senate, removed from office
Charges	Criminal administrative misconduct, disregarding the Brazilian federal budget
Cause	Operation Car Wash Responsibility crimes for "fiscal pedaling" Opening of supplementary credits without Congress approval
Congressional votes
Voting in the Chamber of Deputies
Accusation	Vote to open impeachment process
Votes in favor	367
Votes against	137
Present	7
Not voting	2
Result	Approved
Voting in the Federal Senate
Accusation	Vote to suspend Rousseff from the presidency
Votes in favor	55
Votes against	22
Present	2
Not voting	1
Result	Rousseff suspended from office; Michel Temer becomes Acting President
Accusation	Vote to remove Rousseff from office
Votes in favor	61 "guilty"
Votes against	20 "not guilty"
Result	Convicted; Michel Temer becomes President
Accusation	Vote to remove political rights
Votes in favor	42 "guilty"
Votes against	36 "not guilty"
Present	3
Result	Acquitted (54 "guilty" votes necessary for a conviction)

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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. Dilma 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.^[1][2][3] 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.^[4][5]

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.^[5] 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",^[6][7] successfully argued that a sitting president could not be investigated while in office for crimes committed prior to election.^[8][9]

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.^[10] On 31 August 2016, the Senate removed President Rousseff from office by a 61–20 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.^[11][12] Temer was accused by an Odebrecht executive of soliciting campaign donations in 2014 for his party.^[13] He faced trial along with Rousseff in the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in a complaint filed by Aécio Neves, the candidate narrowly defeated by Rousseff in the 2014 presidential runoff, over irregularities in their campaign funds—Rousseff had shared the PT-PMDB coalition ticket with Temer.^[14][15]

On 9 June 2017, the court rejected, by a 4–3 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.^[16][17]