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- <text id=92TT2291>
- <title>
- Oct. 12, 1992: It's Official:The System Works
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Oct. 12, 1992 Perot:HE'S BACK!
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 26
- WORLD
- It's Official: The System Works
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Brazil impeaches its President and will try him on charges of
- corruption
- </p>
- <p> Impeaching a Chief Executive is a deadly serious matter, so it
- would have been understandable if Brazilians had felt dejected
- after the lower house of Congress ousted President Fernando
- Collor de Mello. Instead, the country exploded into cheers and
- celebrated the impeachment as a victory for democracy. Before
- the Congress building in Brasilia, a crowd of 100,000, many of
- them young people, hugged and danced.
- </p>
- <p> The impeachment vote in the Chamber of Deputies was a
- lopsided 441 to 38. Collor is suspended for up to six months,
- during which the Senate will try him on charges of corruption.
- Vice President Itamar Franco, a longtime Senator, became Acting
- President. Collor did not appear publicly after the vote, but
- Justice Minister Celio Borja said the President took the news
- "with great dignity." He said Collor does not plan to step down
- permanently unless the Senate finds him guilty, an outcome most
- political leaders now think is inevitable. In fact, Collor's
- trials may not end in the Senate. Attorney General Aristides
- Junqueira is preparing to file criminal charges of corruption
- and malfeasance.
- </p>
- <p> It is the first presidential impeachment in Brazil's
- 103-year history as a republic. The country had held high hopes
- for Collor, 43, who was elected in 1989 on an anticorruption
- platform. But last August a special congressional commission
- found strong evidence that Collor had accepted $6.5 million from
- a slush fund operated by his former campaign fund raiser. Now
- the country's hopes -- well founded so far -- are for an orderly
- transition of power.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-