MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US confident Brazil will address political challenges according to constitutional principles

“We are confident Brazil will work through its political challenges democratically in accordance with its constitutional principles”, said Ms Trudeau

United States continues to follow political development in Brazil and is confident that the country will work through its political challenges democratically in accordance with its constitutional principles, said the State Department spokesperson on Thursday in reply to a question on current events in Brasilia.

 “We are confident Brazil will work through its political challenges democratically in accordance with its constitutional principles”, said Ms. Trudeau, who added that US is also confident that the strong bilateral relationship will continue.

“As the two largest democracies in the hemisphere, Brazil and the United States are committed partners and cooperate on a number of issues, trade, security, environment, and we expect that it will continue”.

On Thursday early morning president Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office following a vote in the Senate, 55/22, and was later in the day replaced by acting president Michel Temer and a new cabinet.

The Senate vote means Rousseff will be out of office for 180 days, period in which the Upper House considers the merits or not, of her impeachment for alleged cosmetic manipulation of government accounts ahead of the 2014 presidential election when she was reelected.

Following the discussions, for which the Senate has up to six months, it will vote on the conclusions of the impeachment process. If two thirds of Senators, 54 vote supporting conclusions, Rousseff will definitively be removed from office and Temer will become president until the end of the four year mandate, 31 December 2018.

Temer is expected to lead a coalition government described as business friendly which will implement some radical reforms to help balance the budget, mainly in the long term, basically the pensions' system. No matter what happens in the Senate, it's hard to see suspended Rousseff returning to office in six months, given the fact she was unable to manage a stable coalition to pass much needed legislation.