Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been formally impeached by the country’s senate
Brazil's first female President Dilma Rousseff has been impeached by the country's senate.
The senate voted 61 to 20 in favour of impeaching Rousseff, who will be replaced by her running mate Michel Temer for the remaining two years of her term, comfortably ahead of a two-thirds majority needed to remove her from office.
A separate vote will be held on whether Rousseff will be barred from public office for eight years.
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Having stood down in mid-May, Rousseff has been battling impeachment charges for more than 10 months, with her opponents claiming she issued spending budget decrees without approval ahead of her 2014 re-election.
It is also claimed she frontloaded funds for government social programmes to boost her chances in the polls.
It comes after Rousseff issued a 14 hour defence of her government's achievements, calling her opponents “usurpers” and “coup-mongers”.