Brazil ousts lawmaker who pushed for Rousseff impeachment
BRASILIA – Agence France-Presse
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Brazil’s lower house of Congress removed from office Sept. 12 lawmaker Eduardo Cunha, who pushed for the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, for hiding Swiss bank accounts.“I declare lawmaker Eduardo Cunha stripped of office for conduct incompatible with lawmakers’ duties,” said the decision, read out after 450 votes in favor or his removal, 10 against and nine abstentions.
The 57-year-old conservative lawmaker, who is allied with Congress’s evangelical Christian wing, resigned from his position as speaker in July amid swirling accusations of corruption linked to the huge state oil company Petrobras.
Cunha was first suspended in May, less than a month after lawmakers voted to open impeachment proceedings against Rousseff, Brazil’s first woman president.
Rousseff was definitively removed from office on Aug. 31, and replaced by her vice president turned nemesis Michel Temer.
The new center-right administration brought an end to 13 years of leftist rule in Brazil.
