The GPM Global Forecast is a bi-weekly, members-only article series for 2016. It provides analysis and short-term forecasting on key military, political, and economic events around the globe. 

Brazil’s Embattled President Facing an Impeachment Vote in the Senate

It wasn’t Operation Car Wash that finally got to Brazil President Dilma Rousseff, but the anti-corruption investigation that has turned Brazilian politics upside-down certainly helped to create a climate where such a thing is possible.

Over the weekend, 367 representatives in Brazil’s lower house voted to initiate impeachment proceedings against the sitting president, well over the necessary threshold of 342 votes. The vote was initiated not over links to the systemic corruption that pervades Brazil’s political establishment, but the alteration of government data ahead of elections in 2014.

The next step in the impeachment process is a vote in the senate, which will probably take place sometime in May. If the vote passes by a simple majority, President Rousseff will be forced to step down for at least 180 days as the trial plays out. Rousseff could delay the process however by challenging the legality of the original vote in the lower house in Brazil’s Supreme Court.