Photo: AP

Following an all-night debate Wednesday, Brazil’s Senate voted 55-22 to suspend leftist President Dilma Rousseff and, citing allegations of corruption, initiated impeachment proceedings against her.

Vice President Michel Temer, Rousseff’s former center-right ally who has himself been implicated in Brazil’s unfolding corruption inquiries, will take over as acting president.

Rousseff stands accused of borrowing from state banks to hide the country’s deficit in order to get re-elected two years ago. “I am the victim of a process that is rooted in injustice, and legal and political fraud,” she said last month.

In addition to that multi-billion corruption scandal, Temer’s unpopular coalition inherits an economic crisis, a health crisis, and the Rio Olympics. Also, Rousseff’s supporters are accusing him of facilitating a coup d’etat. From the Los Angeles Times:

Congress members, most of whom face criminal investigations themselves for possible corruption or other serious crimes, set aside questions of corruption for the impeachment process, focusing instead on relatively minor accounting maneuvers used to formulate the national budget. (Opponents of impeachment note Temer himself had OK’ed such maneuvers.)

As Rousseff’s opponents pushed forward, the case took a staggering number of strange turns, leaving the population confused and exasperated as the impeachment question often devolved into political shouting matches.

“This case has been the real-life version of a Kafka novel. It’s like ‘The Trial,’” political scientist Francisco Fonseca said. “They have attempted to remove Rousseff and her party with whatever mechanism or argument they can muster.”

The Senate has 180 to conduct an impeachment trial. According to a poll cited by the Times, 60 percent of Brazilians want both Rousseff and Temer impeached.