Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Dilma Rousseff: "There was no constitutional reason for the impeachment"

Brazil's Senate has voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office for manipulating the budget.

It puts an end to the 13 years in power of her left-wing Workers' Party. Ms Rousseff had denied the charges.

Sixty-one senators voted in favour of her dismissal and 20 against, meeting the two-thirds majority needed to remove her from the presidency.

Michel Temer has been sworn in as president and will serve out Ms Rousseff's term until 1 January 2019.

The centre-right PMDB party politician had been serving as acting president during the impeachment proceedings.

During his first cabinet meeting since the vote, Mr Temer said his inauguration marked a "new era".

Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Temer arrived in the Congress two hours after the impeachment vote to be sworn in

He asked his ministers to "vigorously defend" the government from accusations that Ms Rousseff's dismissal amounted to a coup d'etat.

"We can't leave one accusation unanswered," he said during the meeting, which was broadcast live on television.

He also told ministers to work closely with the Congress to revive the Brazilian economy. Mr Temer is travelling to China to take part in a summit of the G-20 group of major economies.

The dismissal of Ms Rousseff has caused a rift between Brazil and three left-wing South American governments that criticised the move later on Wednesday.

Brazil and Venezuela recalled each other's ambassadors. Brazilian envoys to Bolivia and Ecuador have also been ordered home.

'See you soon'

Ms Rousseff lost the impeachment battle but won a separate Senate vote that had sought to ban her from public office for eight years.

Pledging to appeal against her dismissal, she told her supporters: "I will not say goodbye to you. I am certain I can say: 'See you soon.'"

She added: "They have convicted an innocent person and carried out a parliamentary coup."

Image copyright AP Image caption Supporters of Ms Rousseff have held protests against acting president Michel Temer

Anti-Temer demonstrations were held in many cities, including Brasilia.

Ms Rousseff was suspended in May after the Senate voted to go ahead with the impeachment process.

She was accused of moving funds between government budgets, which is illegal under Brazilian law.

Her critics said she was trying to plug deficit holes in popular social programmes to boost her chances of being re-elected in 2014.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Senators did not back a move to bar Ms Rousseff from public office for eight years

Ms Rousseff fought the allegations, arguing that her right-wing rivals had been trying to remove her from office ever since her re-election.

Dilma Rousseff

Born in 1947, grew up in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte

Her father was Bulgarian immigrant and an ex-communist

Joined left-wing movement against Brazil's military dictatorship which had seized power in 1964

Detained in 1970 and imprisoned for three years

Subjected to torture including electric shocks for her role in the underground resistance

Came to political prominence as the protege of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2011

Sworn in as Brazil's first female president in 2011

Re-elected to a second term in 2014

Impeached on 31 August 2016

She said that she was being ousted because she had allowed a wide-ranging corruption investigation to go ahead, which resulted in many high-profile politicians being charged.

Analysis by Daniel Gallas, BBC South Americas Business Correspondent

Dilma Rousseff's impeachment trial in the Senate has raised important questions about Brazil's democratic institutions.

Was she ousted for having committed a crime - or was that just a pretext to remove a president who had lost control of the economy and politics?

Her fiscal manoeuvres were thoroughly examined during the sessions, but it was not just that which was on trial.

Her government policies, her U-turn on the economy after the election and corruption in her party were constantly part of the debate.

Also, as the trial unfolded, Michel Temer's interim government started its work reforming the economy and outlining new policies.

Senators - and Brazilians - knew that the question of condemning Ms Rousseff went beyond just deciding technically whether she was guilty or not.

Read Daniel Gallas' analysis in full

But senators who voted in favour of her removal said it was Ms Rousseff and the Workers' Party who were corrupt and needed to go.

Mr Temer, who will govern until 1 January 2019, has promised to boost Brazil's economy, which is going through its longest and deepest recession in the past quarter of a century.

His critics have already warned that he plans to cut many of the popular social programmes introduced by the Workers' Party.</s>(CNN) Brazil's first female president is out of a job, but not barred from the ballot if she wants to run again.

The South American country's Senate voted 61-20 Wednesday to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, finding her guilty of breaking budgetary laws in an impeachment trial.

Temer, 75, inherits a tattered economy, along with the keys to the presidential palace in Brasilia, the nation's capital.

He met with his Cabinet and promised to tackle unemployment.

"I am not saying it is an easy task, since we have almost 12 million people unemployed in this country," he said, according to a CNN translation. "It's a scary number, and there is nothing less dignified than unemployment."

Photos: The rise and fall of Dilma Rousseff Freedom fighter – As young Marxist during Brazil's military dictatorship, Dilma Rousseff was charged by a military court with subversion and jailed in November 1970. Rousseff has said she was tortured with electrical shocks by her captors during her imprisonment. Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: The rise and fall of Dilma Rousseff Chief of staff – As former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief of staff, Rousseff took on several high-profile roles. She announced the discovery of Brazil's pre-salt oil reserves, which would have made the country self-sustainable and could have produced up to 100 billion barrels of oil. But the reserve, discovered in 2009, still remains untapped. Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: The rise and fall of Dilma Rousseff Presidential hopeful – Rousseff campaigning for the presidency in 2010. Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: The rise and fall of Dilma Rousseff President – Dilma Rousseff is sworn in to her first term on January 1, 2011, becoming Brazil's first female president. She's seen here with running mate Michel Temer, who has now succeeded her as president. Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: The rise and fall of Dilma Rousseff Fighting for political life – Rousseff gestures during her testimony during her impeachment trial at the National Congress in Brasilia on August 29, 2016. Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: The rise and fall of Dilma Rousseff Deposed – After the Senate voted for her impeachment, Rousseff was officially removed from office Wednesday afternoon. Hide Caption 6 of 6

A general election is scheduled for 2018.

Wednesday's vote marks the culmination of a contentious impeachment process that has dragged on for months. It's a political crisis that ordinary Brazilians could do well without as the country, which just hosted the Summer Olympics in Rio, is trying to pull itself out of recession.

The Senate's decision is a major blow for Rousseff, a member of the Workers' Party, but it might not mark the end of her political career.

While the vote to oust her from office was decisive, a motion to bar her from holding any public office for the next eight years failed.

Rousseff, 68, a former Marxist guerrilla, said earlier this week that she had committed no crime and said she was proud she'd been "faithful to my commitment to the nation."

JUST WATCHED Rousseff impeachment trial in final phase Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Rousseff impeachment trial in final phase 02:50

Sen. Lindbergh Farias of the Workers' Party made an impassioned plea against Rousseff's impeachment.

"This is a farce. This is a pretext. This is absolutely irrelevant. There are two types of senators, the one that know there was no crime of responsibility and vote against the impeachment and those that know there was no crime of responsibility and vote in favor," he said, shouting from the Senate floor.

Sen. Ronaldo Caiado of the Democrats argued that Rousseff should be ousted, arguing that lawmakers weren't the ones behind the impeachment process.

"It began because 90% of the population has said loudly, no more (Workers' Party)," he said.

In May, Rousseff called the impeachment proceedings an attempt at a power grab by her rivals. She said her government has long been the target of political sabotage.

"When Brazil or when a president is impeached for a crime that they have not committed, the name we have for this in democracy -- it's not an impeachment, it is a coup," she said after the Senate voted to launch the proceedings.

The heir-apparent to former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Rousseff was re-elected by a narrow margin in 2014, but a recession and a cross-party corruption scandal put an end to any political goodwill she might have earned, eventually leading to her ouster.

A statement from the spokesman for Ban Ki-moon said the UN Secretary-General had "taken note" of the impeachment process and Temer's swearing in.</s>BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil’s Senate removed leftist President Dilma Rousseff from office on Wednesday for breaking budgetary laws, in an impeachment process that has polarized the Latin American country and paralyzed its politics for nine months.

Senators voted 61-20 to convict Rousseff for illegally using money from state banks to boost public spending. Her conservative former vice president, Michel Temer, who has run the country since her suspension in May, will be sworn to serve out the remainder of her term through 2018.

A separate vote will be held on whether Rousseff will be barred from public office for eight years.</s>Brazil's Senate on Wednesday voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, the culmination of a yearlong fight that paralyzed Latin America's largest nation and exposed deep rifts among its people on everything from race relations to social spending.

While Rousseff's ouster was widely expected, the decision was a key chapter in a colossal political struggle that is far from over. Rousseff was Brazil's first female president, with a storied career that includes a stint as a Marxist guerrilla jailed and tortured in the 1970s during the country's dictatorship. She was accused of breaking fiscal laws in her management of the federal budget.

Opposition lawmakers, who made clear early on the only solution was getting her out of office, argued that the maneuvers masked yawning deficits from high spending and ultimately exacerbated the recession in a nation that had long enjoyed darling status among emerging economies.

Nonsense, Rousseff countered time and again, proclaiming her innocence up to the end. Previous presidents used similar accounting techniques, she noted, saying the push to remove her was a bloodless coup d'état by elites fuming over the populist polices of her Workers' Party the last 13 years.

The opposition needed 54 of the 81 senators to vote in favor for her to be removed. They got many more, winning in a landslide of sorts, 61-20.

"Today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54 million Brazilian votes in the garbage," Rousseff tweeted minutes after the decision.

Rousseff won re-election in 2014, garnering more than 54 million votes.

In the background of the entire fight was a wide-ranging investigation into billions of dollars in kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras. The two-year probe has led to the jailing of dozens of top businessmen and politicians from across the political spectrum, and threatens many of the same lawmakers who voted to remove Rousseff.

Rousseff argued that many opponents just wanted her out of the way so they could save their own skins by tampering with the investigation, which Rousseff had refused to do.

Many lawmakers and Brazilians nationwide, meanwhile, blamed Rousseff for the graft even though she has never been personally implicated. They argued that she had to know, as many of the alleged bribes happened while her party was in power.

Rousseff's removal creates many questions that are not easily answered. Michel Temer, her vice president who became her nemesis, will serve out the remainder of her term through 2018. But Brazilians have already gotten a taste of Temer's leadership, and they are clearly unimpressed.

In May, Temer took over as interim president after the Senate impeached and suspended Rousseff. The 75-year-old career politician named a Cabinet of all-white men, a decision roundly criticized in a nation that is more than 50 percent nonwhite. Three of his ministers were forced to resign within weeks of taking their jobs because of corruption allegations, which also follow Temer and threaten his hold on power.

When Temer announced the opening of the Olympics on Aug. 5, he was so vociferously booed that he remained out of sight for the remainder of the games.

Rousseff's allies have vowed to appeal to the country's highest court. While previous petitions to the court have failed to stop the impeachment process, at the very least legal wrangling will keep the issue front and center.

The decision also leaves many question marks over the economy, expected to decline for a second straight year. Temer has promised to pull the country of 200 million people from its recession by tackling reforms that have long been taboo, such as slimming public pensions.

But he has not been able to accomplish much the last 3 months as interim president, and it remains to be seen whether Congress will be willing to work with him.</s>Brazil's Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to permanently remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, marking a turbulent finale to 13 years of center-left government in Latin America's largest country.

Rousseff, a onetime guerrilla turned economist, was convicted on a vote of 61 to 20 of breaking fiscal responsibility law. Brazil’s more conservative Vice President Michel Temer will serve out the rest of her term, till 2018.

Though Brazil basked in the world’s attention during this month’s Olympics, it continues to be saddled by a crippling recession, an ongoing investigation into widespread corruption and a crisis in confidence in the political system.

Over the last few days, as Rousseff emphatically protested her innocence and accused elites of orchestrating a “coup,” protesters in some cities clashed with police and fires blocked main arteries, but the demonstrations were smaller than those that called for her ouster earlier this year and led to her temporary suspension in May.

“I was no fan of Rousseff's government. It made serious mistakes. But at least she was elected legitimately,” said Michelle Brito, 33, who attempted to join a protest against Temer's new government near her work Tuesday night in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, before being turned away by tear gas, explosions, and crowds running from police.

“I believe the men who took over did so cynically and with the worst intentions,” Brito said. “They wanted to take power without having to face democracy, and I fear now for how we may suffer. ”

Though polls showed a majority of Brazilians wanted Rousseff out before the impeachment process started, a majority also wanted to remove Temer. Brazilians vigorously booed him during the recent opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics.

Recent polling suggests a majority preferred new elections and only half the country believed impeachment was being carried out in full accordance with the law. The Supreme Court, however, allowed the Senate to decide if Rousseff's offenses merited impeachment, and much of the country's political and business elite has been united around the idea of a permanent Temer government for months.

Temer, who turned on Rousseff to support impeachment, formed an alliance with parts of her coalition and the party that lost the 2014 election. He cannot run for president in 2018 because he has been convicted of breaking campaign finance rules and banned from running for office. The two men behind him in line for the presidency have been accused of corruption, while Rousseff has not. Technically, she was accused of shifting public funds to mask federal deficits.

Temer's new administration surprised Brazilians in May when he steered the country sharply to the right and installed a new Cabinet made up of entirely white men in a country that is minority white, then three of his new ministers immediately had to resign amid corruption accusations unearthed in the country's sprawling “Car Wash” corruption probe.

Temer, who has served as “interim” president since Rousseff was suspended in May, will now be granted full powers, but may nevertheless face an uphill battle to establish popularity and get the economy back on track.

“It's going to be a difficult period for Brazil's economy under Temer, and it would have been difficult under Rousseff. Even if Temer survives [until 2018] and is relatively successful, we don't expect him to be very popular,” says Joao Augusto de Castro Neves, Latin America Director at the Eurasia Group in Washington.

Despite the lack of consensus as to whether this the right way to remove Rousseff, he added, “few governments in the world would have survived this perfect storm of political factors. Rousseff lost political support, the country faces a severe recession, and there is an ongoing, massive corruption scandal.”

Out of the last four presidents elected in Brazil, Rousseff is the second to depart office early. In 1992, President Fernando Collor resigned before facing impeachment. This may be the first time since the fall of Brazil's dictatorship in the 1980s that a significant portion of the population questions the democratic legitimacy of its leader.

The final moments of the lengthy impeachment proceedings offered moments of high drama that captured the attention of the country just after the spectacle of the Rio Games.

On Monday, Rousseff took the stand for 14 hours, defending herself emphatically during questioning after reminding the country of the torture she suffered as a revolutionary under Brazil’s dictatorship and said conservatives elites had conspired to overthrow her election and threaten democracy.

Brazil's current and former presidents face trials. And the interim president is in hot water too

U.S. Congress members express 'deep concern' over threats to democracy in Brazil

9:50 a.m., Aug. 31: This article was updated with Brazil’s Senate voting to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office.

This article was originally published at 7:15 p.m., Aug. 30</s>Brazil’s senate has voted to permanently remove president Dilma Rousseff from office.

The decision is the culmination of a year-long fight that paralysed Latin America’s most powerful economy and exposed deep rifts among its people on everything from race relations to social spending.

Brazil’s first female president was accused of breaking fiscal responsibility laws in her management of the federal budget.

She denied wrongdoing, and frequently pointed out that previous presidents used similar accounting measures.

Ms Rousseff later denounced the senators who removed her from office. She sent a tweet saying that “today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54 million Brazilian votes in the garbage”.

Ms Rousseff won re-election in 2014 with more than 54 million votes.

Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who presided over the trial, ruled: “The Senate has found that the president of the federal republic of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff, committed crimes in breaking fiscal laws.”

The opposition needed 54 of the 81 senators to vote in favour for her to be removed. They got many more, winning in a landslide of sorts, 61-20. In a second vote about 30 minutes later, Ms Rousseff won a minor victory as a measure to ban her from public office for eight years failed.

In the background of the entire fight was a wide-ranging investigation into billions of dollars in kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras. The two-year probe has led to the jailing of dozens of top businessmen and politicians from across the political spectrum, and threatens many of the same politicians who voted to remove Ms Rousseff.

She argued that many opponents just wanted her out of the way so they could save their own skins by tampering with the investigation.

Ms Rousseff’s removal creates many questions that are not easily answered. Michel Temer, her vice-president who became her nemesis, will serve out the remainder of her term until 2018. In May, he took over as interim president after the Senate impeached and suspended Ms Rousseff.

The 75-year-old career politician named a cabinet of all-white men, a decision roundly criticised in a nation that is more than 50 per cent non-white. When Mr Temer announced the opening of the Olympics, he was so vociferously booed that he remained out of sight for the remainder of the games.</s>Brazil's Senate has voted to permanently remove President Dilma Rousseff from office.

Rousseff - the country's first female president - was accused of illegally using money from state banks to boost public spending in order to patch budget holes in 2014, masking the country's problems as it slid into its deepest recession in decades.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to convict her by 61 votes to 20. However, she has not been barred from holding public office.

Her conservative former Vice President Michel Temer, who has run the country since her suspension in May, will be sworn to serve out the remainder of her term through 2018.

A separate vote will be held on whether Rousseff will be barred from public office for eight years.

However, Rousseff - who was jailed and tortured in the 1970s during the country's dictatorship, during which she was a Marxist guerrilla - has not taken the verdict lying down.

In a tweet, she accused the Senate of ignoring the will of the people.

'Today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54million Brazilian votes in the garbage,' she wrote.

Rousseff won re-election in 2014 with more than 54million votes.

She had earlier confronted her accusers, telling the Senate that she was innocent and warning that the Brazilian democracy is in danger.

'Twice I have seen the face of death close up,' she said. 'When I was tortured for days on end, subjected to abuses that make us doubt humanity and the meaning of life itself, and when a serious and extremely painful illness could have cut short my life,' she said.

'Today I fear only for the death of democracy, for which many of us here in this chamber fought.'

The impeachment process that has polarized the Latin American country and paralysed its politics for nine months.</s>Brasilia, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, the culmination of a yearlong fight that paralyzed Latin America’s largest nation and exposed deep rifts among its people on everything from race relations to social spending.

While Rousseff’s ouster was widely expected, the decision was a key chapter in a colossal political struggle that is far from over. Her vice president-turned-nemesis, Michel Temer, was immediately sworn in as president with Rousseff’s allies vowing to fight her removal.

Rousseff was Brazil’s first female president, with a storied career that includes a stint as a Marxist guerrilla jailed and tortured in the 1970s during the country’s dictatorship. She was accused of breaking fiscal laws in her management of the federal budget.

“The Senate has found that the president of the federal republic of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff, committed crimes in breaking fiscal laws,” said Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who presided over the trial.

Opposition lawmakers, who made clear early on the only solution was getting her out of office, argued that the maneuvers masked yawning deficits from high spending and ultimately exacerbated the recession in a nation that had long enjoyed darling status among emerging economies.

Nonsense, Rousseff countered time and again, proclaiming her innocence up to the end. Previous presidents used similar accounting techniques, she noted, saying the push to remove her was a bloodless coup d’etat by elites fuming over the populist polices of her Workers’ Party the last 13 years.

The opposition needed 54 of the 81 senators to vote in favor for her to be removed. They got many more, winning in a landslide of sorts, 61-20.

“Today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54 million Brazilian votes in the garbage,” Rousseff tweeted minutes after the decision.

Rousseff won re-election in 2014, garnering more than 54 million votes.

In a second Senate vote about 30 minutes later, Rousseff won a minor victory as a measure to ban her from public office for eight years failed. The 42-36 vote fell short of the 54 votes needed for passage.

In the background of the entire fight was a wide-ranging investigation into billions of dollars in kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras. The two-year probe has led to the jailing of dozens of top businessmen and politicians from across the political spectrum, and threatens many of the same lawmakers who voted to remove Rousseff.

Rousseff argued that many opponents just wanted her out of the way so they could save their own skins by tampering with the investigation, which Rousseff had refused to do.

Many lawmakers and Brazilians nationwide, meanwhile, blamed Rousseff for the graft even though she has never been personally implicated. They argued that she had to know, as many of the alleged bribes happened while her party was in power.

Rousseff’s removal creates many questions that are not easily answered. Temer will serve out the remainder of her term through 2018. He was expected to address the nation in the evening.

But Brazilians have already gotten a taste of Temer’s leadership, and they are clearly unimpressed.

In May, Temer took over as interim president after the Senate impeached and suspended Rousseff. The 75-year-old career politician named a Cabinet of all-white men, a decision roundly criticized in a nation that is more than 50 percent nonwhite. Three of his ministers were forced to resign within weeks of taking their jobs because of corruption allegations, which also follow Temer and threaten his hold on power.

When Temer announced the opening of the Olympics on Aug. 5, he was so vociferously booed that he remained out of sight for the remainder of the games.

Rousseff’s allies have vowed to appeal to the country’s highest court. While previous petitions to the court have failed to stop the impeachment process, at the very least legal wrangling will keep the issue front and center.

The decision also leaves many question marks over the economy, expected to decline for a second straight year. Temer has promised to pull the country of 200 million people from its recession by tackling reforms that have long been taboo, such as slimming public pensions.

But he has not been able to accomplish much the last three months as interim president, and it remains to be seen whether Congress will be willing to work with him.

Several polls have shown that Brazilians prefer new elections to solve the crisis.

For that to happen, however, Temer would have to be removed from office or resign, something he clearly has no intention of doing. Speaking to the nation in televised address Wednesday evening, Temer hit back at Rousseff.

“Putschist is you,” he said, referring to Rousseff’s accusation that he had led the charge to oust her. “It’s you who is breaking the constitution.”

Temer said he had tasked his Cabinet with pushing forward budget and pension reforms as well as proposals to create jobs.

“From today on, the expectations are much higher for the government. I hope that in these two years and four months, we do what we have declared — put Brazil back on track,” he said.

Speaking to supporters at the presidential residence, Rousseff promised to mount a strong opposition, but didn’t elaborate.

“This coup is against social movements and unions and against those who fight for their rights,” she said. “Rights for the young people to make history, rights for the black, indigenous, LGBT and women.”</s>RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The permanent ouster of deeply unpopular President Dilma Rousseff by Brazil's Senate means that a man who is arguably just as unpopular is now faced with trying to ease the wounds of a divided nation mired in recession.

Long known as an uncharismatic backroom wheeler-dealer, Michel Temer inherits a shrinking economy, a Zika virus outbreak that has ravaged poor northeastern states and political instability fed by a sprawling corruption probe that has tarred much of the country's political and business elite — himself included.

So far he's struggled in the nearly four months he's served as interim president following Rousseff's May impeachment, which suspended her from office while a final trial was prepared. The Senate's 61-20 vote on Wednesday to permanently remove her means Temer, who had been her vice president, will now serve out her term, which ends in late 2018.

Just hours after Rousseff was removed, Temer assured the nation his administration was up to the task.

"From today on, the expectations are much higher for the government. I hope that in these two years and four months, we do what we have declared — put Brazil back on track," he said.

Temer also denied that the proceedings were a coup against Rousseff, which she repeatedly claimed throughout the process.

"Putschist is you," he said, referring to Rousseff. "It's you who is breaking the constitution."

Temer said he planned to attend the G20 meetings in China this weekend, mentioning bilateral meetings that leaders from Spain, Japan, Italy and Saudi Arabia have already requested.

"We are traveling to show the world that we have political and legal stability," he said. "We have to show that there is hope in the country."

Whether Temer can convince Brazilians that he is worth a real shot is unclear.

He appeared tone-deaf with his first move in May: appointing an entirely white, male Cabinet to oversee a nation of 200 million people where more than 50 percent identify as black or mixed-race.

Three of Temer's ministers had to quit within days of being named because of corruption allegations. And so far he has struggled to build consensus around key reforms, such as slimming the country's pension system.

Government ministers are promising progress now that "interim" is no longer part of Temer's title.

"With the end of the interim period and a vote of more than 60 senators, the investors will start bringing jobs again," said Cabinet chief Eliseu Padilha.

So far that message hasn't resonated with most Brazilians, however. Just 14 percent said they approved of Temer's performance in a July poll by Datafolha. On the flip side, 62 percent said they wanted new elections to resolve the crisis. The poll interviewed 2,792 people July 14-15 and had a 2 percentage point margin of error.

New elections would first require that Temer resign, which he has no intention of doing.

The son of Lebanese immigrants, the 75-year-old Temer quietly rose through Brazil's political ranks, building a reputation as a negotiator who could forge deals among political rivals. His reserved manner earned him the nickname the "Butler." The only thing flashy about him is his wife, 32-year-old Marcela Temer, an ex-beauty pageant contestant who tattooed Temer's name on her neck.

As a leader of the country's biggest party, the ideologically flexible Brazilian Democratic Party Movement, Temer won election as head of the lower house of Congress for nearly a decade.

A political marriage of convenience led the leftist Rousseff to choose the Sao Paulo congressman as her vice presidential running mate in 2010. Their formal if frosty relationship endured as the country continued a decade and a half-long boom.

But by the time the pair was re-elected in 2014, the economy began to unravel and street protests erupted.

Prosecutors and judges uncovered a web of billions of dollars of kickbacks at the state oil giant Petrobras. The two-year probe has ensnared dozens of businessmen and politicians across the political spectrum.

Although Rousseff has never been personally implicated, many blame her for the graft because much of it happened while her party was in power. Temer, on the other hand, has been directly implicated: In a plea bargain, former Sen. Sergio Machado said that Temer asked him to channel $400,000 in Petrobras kickbacks to 2012 Sao Paulo mayoral candidate in Temer's party. Temer denies wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Temer also is banned from running for office the next eight years because Sao Paulo's electoral court found him guilty of violating campaign spending laws in 2014.

Those things add to vehement opposition from Rousseff and her backers, who brand him a "usurper" and say he was brought into office to help squelch the corruption probe and restore the authority the country's elite.

"They think that they beat us, but they are wrong," said Rousseff on Wednesday in her first remarks after being removed from office.

Late Wednesday night, a group of unhappy Rousseff supporters smashed windows of bank branches, other businesses and a police SUV in the city of Sao Paulo. Anti-riot police tried to quell the demonstration with stun grenades and tear gas.

Rousseff supporters have promised to try to impeach Temer, though analysts say that's unlikely.

"Temer's party is the biggest in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate. That alone makes an impeachment process unlikely," said Jose Luiz Niemeyer, a professor of international relations at Ibmec, a Rio-based university.</s>Brazil’s senate dismissed former president Dilma Rousseff from office on Wednesday in an impeachment trial that draws the curtain on 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule in Latin America’s largest nation.

Senators voted 61-20 in favour of ousting her.

For more than 10 months, the leftist leader has fought efforts to impeach her for frontloading funds for government social programmes and issuing spending budget decrees without congressional approval ahead of her re-election in 2014.

The opposition claimed that these constituted a “crime of responsibility”. Rousseff denies this and claims the charges – which were never levelled at previous administrations who did the same thing – have been trumped up by opponents who were unable to accept the Workers’ Party’s victory.

In keeping with her pledge to fight until the end for the 54 million voters who put her in office, Ms Rousseff – a former Marxist guerrilla – ended her presidency this week with a gritty 14-hour defence of her government’s achievements and a sharply worded attack on the “usurpers” and “coup-mongers” who ejected her from power without an election.

Her lawyer, José Eduardo Cardozo, said the charges were trumped up to punish the president’s support for a huge corruption investigation that has snared many of Brazil’s elite. This follows secret recordings of Romero Juca, the majority leader of the senate and a key ally of Michel Temer (Ms Rousseff’s conservative former vice president), plotting to remove the president to halt the Lava Jato (car wash) investigation into kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras.

While Ms Rousseff was in the upper chamber, her critics heard her in respectful silence. But in a final session in her absence on Tuesday, they lined up to condemn her. As in an earlier lower house impeachment debate , the senators – many of whom are accused of far greater crimes – clearly revelled in the spotlight of their ten-minute declarations.

Reflecting the growing power of right-wing evangelism in the country, many invoked the name of God. One cited Winston Churchill. Another sang. Another appeared to be in tears.

A tricky transition awaits Mr Temer, who has served as interim president since the senate trial began in May and will finish out her term to the end of 2018.

His chief of staff, Eliseu Padilha, said in a Twitter message that the government expected 60 to 61 votes against Rousseff, a comfortable majority that would confirm Mr Temer in office.

Mr Temer has vowed to boost an economy that has shrunk for six consecutive quarters and implement austerity measures to plug a record budget deficit, which cost Brazil its investment-grade credit rating last year.

Earlier in the day, the government said gross domestic product contracted 0.6 per cent in the second quarter, putting the economy on track to post its longest and harshest recession in more than a century. Still, expectations that the political stalemate could end soon with Ms Rousseff’s impeachment helped bolster investment, which expanded in the second quarter for the first time in three years.
President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff is removed from office by a vote of 61–20 in the Senate. Current Acting President Michel Temer will serve out the remainder of her term, which ends January 1, 2019.