Brazil Senate Starts Session to Vote on President Rousseff's Impeachment

The Bralian Federal Senate is due to vote on the President impeachment, according to the body's website.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The upper chamber of Brazil's National Congress, the Federal Senate, started a session on Wednesday in which it is due to vote on the impeachment of the country's president, Dilma Rousseff, according to the body's website.

At least 41 senators, or over half of the Federal Senate, must vote in favor of the impeachment for Rousseff to receive a 180-day suspension. Should she be suspended, Vice President Michel Temer would temporarily take over the presidency, and the senate would return to the impeachment issue at a special session under the chairmanship of the president of the Supreme Court. If two-thirds of the senate, or 54 lawmakers, support the impeachment at that session, Rousseff will be forced out of office.

Brazil is heading towards an impeachment trial https://t.co/JDjr4UsZDm pic.twitter.com/uln0SbwQ3Q

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) 11 мая 2016 г.

​On April 17, two-thirds of lawmakers in the lower house of the National Congress voted in favor of impeaching Rousseff.

Brazil’s leader has been facing rising discontent over the country's struggling economy and a major corruption scandal in the state-owned energy corporation Petrobras. She headed the company between 2003 and 2010, the period during which most of the corruption reportedly took place.

Rousseff's impeachment process has been characterized by her supporters as a political witch-hunt.