Future of Brazil’s president on the line in key Senate vote

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday neared a historic vote on impeaching President Dilma Rousseff, likely ending 13 years of government by her left-leaning party amid a spate of crises besetting Latin America’s largest nation.

If a simple majority of the 81 senators vote in favor, Rousseff would be suspended from office and Vice President Michel Temer would take over for up to six months pending a decision on whether to remove her from office permanently.

Brazil is mired in the worst economic downturn in decades and a sprawling corruption scandal centered on the state-run Petrobras oil company has soured the national mood, even as the country gears up to host South America’s first Olympic Games in August.

Supporters of impeachment blame Rousseff and her Workers’ Party for the stalled economy and insist that Temer, whose party has split from the governing coalition, represents the only hope of reviving it.

“To improve the life of the nation we need to remove them (Rousseff’s Workers’ Party) at this time,” Sen. Magno Malta told a scrum of journalists outside the Senate floor.