Brazilian President Rousseff Dismisses Cabinet After Impeachment

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff dismissed officials in her government, including her chief of staff, in an executive decision published in the official gazette of the government on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The 104-page order lists Acting Chief of Staff Eva Chiavon and her predecessor Jaques Wagner, as well as Finance Minister Nelson Barbosa among others, who have been removed from their posts.

The upper house of the Brazilian parliament voted 55-22 earlier on Thursday to start impeachment proceedings against Rousseff after she was accused of concealing the country’s budget deficit ahead of the 2014 re-election.

The 68-year-old Rousseff has been suspended from office for 180 days, pending her trial. Vice-President Michel Temer is expected to assume the presidency during that period and name his cabinet shortly.

Brazil’s president has been facing a wave of public discontent for over a year amid the country’s struggling economy and a major corruption scandal in the state-owned Petrobras petroleum company.

In a speech that ended minutes ago, Rousseff argued that the impeachment vote was a coup and stressed that she did not commit an impeachable crime.