Nancy Caouette
02 August 2017•Update: 02 August 2017
By Nancy Caouette
MEXICO CITY
Lawmakers in Brazil are voting Wednesday whether President Michel Temer should step down and face trial for corruption.
It comes a year after Congress ejected his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, in an impeachment trial.
Moments after the opening of the voting session, opposition lawmakers entered the lower house with a banner that read: “Out with Temer”.
"Today is an historic day for the country. I want new and clean elections. Temer simply cannot be in office anymore, " opposition lawmaker Darci Pompeo de Mattos told Congress.
Less than a year after taking power, Temer was formally accused of corruption by Brazil's attorney general in late June.
Temer, Brazil’s first president to be charged for a crime while in office, is alleged to have accepted millions of dollars in bribes from a meatpacking industry executive.
If two-thirds of lawmakers approve the charges and Brazil's supreme court endorses the decision, Temer would be suspended for up to 180 days and put on trial.
Analysts say he should be able to win enough support in the lower house to avoid a trial until he steps down in January 2019.
The president’s lawyer said before the lower house Wednesday the accusation "lacks evidence" and seeks to "turn an immaculate man into a prisoner".
But according to local media, Brazil’s top prosecutor, Rodrigo Janot, will file additional graft-related charges in the coming weeks against the very unpopular center-right leader.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a sixth trial for former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for corruption and money laundering charges
Lula was sentenced last month to nine-and-a-half years in prison on corruption and money-laundering charges.
