- Title: Profile of Brazil’s Rousseff on day Senate votes to put her on trial
- Date: 12th May 2016
- Summary: PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL (FILE - 2010) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** ROUSSEFF VOTING IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ROUSSEFF WAVING AT JOURNALISTS BRASILIA, BRAZIL (FILE - 2011) (REUTERS) ROUSSEFF RIDING ON OPEN TOP CAR TO FIRST SWEARING IN CEREMONY ROUSSEFF RECEIVING PRESIDENTIAL SASH AND HUGGING LULA RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (FILE - 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF PETROBRAS BUILDING SAO PAULO, BRAZIL (FILE - 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF OIL RIG
- Embargoed: 27th May 2016 12:52
- Keywords: Brazil Dilma Rousseff Michel Temer impeachment Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
- Location: BRASILIA, SAO PAULO, RIO DE JANEIRO, PORTO ALEGRE, TOCANTINS, CURITIBA & UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, BRAZIL
- City: BRASILIA, SAO PAULO, RIO DE JANEIRO, PORTO ALEGRE, TOCANTINS, CURITIBA & UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, BRAZIL
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA00A4HI6IBR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
Brazil's Senate voted on Thursday (May 12) to put leftist President Dilma Rousseff on trial in a historic decision brought on by a deep recession and a corruption scandal that will now confront her successor, Vice President Michel Temer.
With Rousseff to be suspended during the Senate trial for allegedly breaking budget rules, the centrist Temer will take the helm of a country that again finds itself mired in political and economic volatility after a recent decade of prosperity.
The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, Rousseff is an economist by training and a former Marxist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured during Brazil's long military dictatorship.
She vigourously denies any wrongdoing and rejects impeachment charges that she manipulated government spending accounts to help her re-election in 2014.
Rousseff served as Chief of Staff under Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government, when 30 million people were brought out of poverty in eight years, and was handpicked as the popular leftist leader's political heir, assuming the presidency in 2011, before she was narrowly reelected in 2014.
Many now blame Rousseff for running Latin America's largest economy into the ground with heavy handed policies and high government spending.
Rousseff also served as head of the Petrobras Board of Directors from 2003 - 2010, the period in which much of the investigations into a massive kickback scandal at the state-run oil company are focused.
She denies knowledge of any corrupt dealings going on at the time, but many feel she has her back against the wall, either seen as a liar or as incompetent, having apparently been caught unaware whilst carrying out a directorial role.
The Petrobras scandal has weakened Rousseff by reaching her inner circle with allegations against Lula. An attempt by Rousseff to appoint Lula to her Cabinet was the last straw for many of her allies who saw it as a desperate move to shield him from prosecution by a lower federal court that is overseeing most of the Petrobras case.
The impeachment process only adds to the crisis hitting Brazil, shaken by its biggest corruption scandal ever, the worst recession in decades and an epidemic of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, as it scrambles to host the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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