- ABC News
- May 12, 2016
BRASILIA, Brazil -- Brazil's Senate voted Thursday to impeach President Dilma Rousseff after a monthslong fight that laid raw the country's fury over corruption and economic decay, hurling Latin America's largest country into political turmoil just months before it hosts the Summer Olympics. Rousseff's enraged backers called the move a coup d'etat and threatened wide-scale protests and strikes. Her foes, meanwhile, insisted that she had broken the law and that the country's deep political, social and economic woes could be tackled only with her on the sideline. The 55-22 vote means that Vice President Michel Temer, Rousseff's ally-turned-enemy, will take over as acting president later Thursday while she is suspended. The Senate has 180 days to conduct a trial and decide whether Rousseff should be permanently removed from office. "Did anyone think that we would get to 2018 with a recovery under this government? Impossible," said Jose Serra, the opposition Social Democratic Party's...