Brazil is tense ahead of impeachment vote
Source: Washington Post
BRASILIA — An impeachment showdown in Brazil’s lower house of Congress on Sunday has South America’s largest country on edge, with lawmakers scheduled to begin voting at 2 p.m. (1 p.m. Eastern time) on a measure to oust unpopular President Dilma Rousseff.
Her opponents say they have secured the two-thirds majority needed to impeach her in Brazil’s 513-member Chamber of Deputies. Lawmakers will cast their votes one by one in a special legislative session broadcast on live television, with final results not expected until the evening.
If the impeachment measure is approved, it would require only a simple majority to clear Brazil’s Senate, where Rousseff’s chances for survival are even slimmer. Rousseff would be suspended from the presidency, Vice President Michel Temer would be sworn in, and senators would have 180 days to conduct impeachment hearings before a final vote to determine her fate.
Whether Rousseff can survive, the impeachment push against her has produced a political crisis that amounts to a stunning reversal of fortune for a country where everything seemed to be going right a few years earlier, when the Brazilian economy was purring.
Now the country is mired in its worst economic slump since the 1930s. A frightening Zika epidemic continues to spread. And with the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro fewer than four months away, the country’s leaders are entirely consumed with the political crisis and a sweeping corruption scandal.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-tense-ahead-of-impeachment-vote/2016/04/17/1850c980-0187-11e6-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_story.html
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