Brazilian President ousted by Parliament vote

Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff has been removed from presidential office after senators in Brasilia voted to impeach her.

She lost her effort to stay in power after a year-long struggle as senators voted 61-20 to remove her. The vice president, Michel Temer, 75, who has been serving as interim President of South America’s largest economy since May, will serve out the rest of her term.

On Monday, she warned Brazilian democracy was in danger as she addressed senators. “I did not commit a crime,” she insisted.
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The ousting of Ms Rousseff also marks the final extinguishing of 13 years of government control by her own Workers Party in Brazil, which under the stewardship first of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or simply Lula, who took power in 2003, and then herself reinforced a social safety net and helped to lift millions of Brazil’s poorest into the middle classes.

It was the souring of the economy, and the reversal of fortunes for many of those who at first benefited from those polices, that helped first stir the rebellion that has now unseated her.

After years of boom, that gave Brazil a spot among the so-called BRIC group of newly emerging economic powers, the nation’s economy was already descending into an equally remarkable tailspin even as she was seeking re-election in 2014.