Brazil congress votes to impeach President Dilma Roussef

Brazil's lower house has voted to start impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff over charges of manipulating government accounts according to international media reports.

Roussef suffered a crushing defeat after the “yes” camp comfortably won the required two-thirds majority, after a lengthy session in the capital, with 367 votes in the lower house. The vote exceeded the 342-vote mark needed to send the motion to the Senate, while the "no" camp secured 167 votes and seven other deputies abstained. Two deputies were not present during the voting.

Roussef denies tampering with the accounts to help secure her re-election in 2014, however the motion will now go to the upper house, the Senate, which is expected to suspend Rousseff next month while it carries out a formal trial.

If the Senate votes for impeachment, Rousseff will be put on trial in the upper chamber and will be removed from office permanently if found guilty.

Protesters and supporters from either side gathered outside the Congress building to follow the proceedings, with the ‘yes’ camp bursting into celebrations even before the two-thirds of the votes had been secured.

Roussef has vigorously denied the allegations levelled at her, writing in a newspaper that her opponents wanted to “convict an innocent woman and save the corrupt”, the BBC reports.

Concerns are also rising about the future of the country’s economy, should the impeachment go ahead. If she is impeached, Vice-President Michel Temer would take over as interim president but he is also facing impeachment proceedings over the same allegations as Rousseff. Lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha - second in line to replace her - is being investigated over allegations of taking multi-million-dollar bribes, and the next person in line, Renan Calheiros, head of the Senate, is also under investigation in connection with a massive corruption scandal at state-oil company Petrobras