Dilma Rousseff removed from office after Senate votes to impeach her

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been thrown out of office, after the Senate found her guilty of manipulating the budget. 61 senators voted in favour of her impeachment and 20 against, meeting the two-thirds majority needed to remove her from her presidency. The decision puts to an end 13 consecutive years of rule over Brazil by Rousseff’s left-wing Worker’s Party. She will be replaced for the remainder of her term by acting President Michel Temer, a centre-right patrician.

First elected in 2010, Rousseff has seen her support among the public and in congress plummet as a result of economic decline, government paralysis, and a massive bribery scandal that has implicated almost all of Brazil’s major parties.

For over 10 months, she has fought efforts to impeach her for frontloading funds for government social programmes and issuing spending budget decrees without congressional approval ahead of her re-election in 2014.

Rousseff denies all charges – which were never leveled at previous administrations who did the same thing – and claimed they were trumped by her opponents who were unable to accept the Workers’ party’s election victory.

A former Marxist guerrilla, she ended her presidency this week with a 14-hour defence of her government’s achievements and a sharply worded attack against the “usurpers” and “coup-mongers” who ousted her from power without an election.

While Rousseff was in the upper chamber, her critics heard her out in respectful silence. However, in a final session in her absence on Tuesday, they lined up to condemn her.