The Brazilian Senate voted on Thursday in favor of putting President Dilma Rousseff on trial for breaking budget laws by 55 votes to 22.
When officially notified later on Thursday morning, Brazil’s first woman president will be suspended, ending 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers Party, and Vice President Michel Temer will become acting president during her trial.
Senators voted to suspend her by 55 votes to 22 after an all-night session that lasted more than 20 hours.
Vice-President Michel Temer will now assume the presidency while Ms Rousseff’s trial takes place.
The trial may last up to 180 days, which would mean Ms Rousseff would be suspended during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which start on 5 August.
Ms Rousseff made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court to stop proceedings, but the move was rejected.
Ms Rousseff, who was first sworn into office in January 2011 and started a second term in 2015, has called the steps to remove her a “coup”.
In a speech at the end of the all-night Senate session, attorney general Jose Eduardo Cardozo said that the impeachment request did not have legal basis and that the opposition wanted to remove a democratically-elected president.
He said senators were condemning an “innocent woman” and that impeachment was a “historic injustice”.
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Source: Reuters & BBC