The Worm Has Turned and Turned Again in Brazil: Chamber of Deputies President Eduardo Cunha is Out, But So Is President Dilma Rousseff

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The political death struggle between Eduardo Cunha, the president of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Brazilian Congress), and President Dilma Rousseff seems to have finally run its course.  The two former political allies fell out when the president declined to shield the leader of the Deputies (third in line for the presidency) from the official investigation into kickbacks at the state-run oil company, Petrobras, known as the “Lava Jato” or “Car Wash” Scandal.  As a consequence, Cunha began a long and lurching march toward an impeachment vote on what most observers agree are rather flimsy charges, though given President Rousseff’s dismal approval numbers, her detractors in Congress smelled blood and pressed on, ultimately succeeding.  Yet Cunha’s own day of reckoning also arrived on the eve of the Senate’s vote over whether to hold a trial for the president.  Cunha, charged with receiving millions of dollars in “Lava Jato” kickbacks, was finally pushed from office by Brazil’s Supreme Court, though President Rousseff was also suspended from office pending her trial.