Brazil's Senate Overturns Supreme Court Decision and Aécio Neves Is Back in Office

10/18/2017 - 11h13

On Tuesday (17), the Senate decided, by 44 votes against 26, to revoke the preliminary injunctions imposed by the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) on Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG).

The only person not to vote was the leader of the Senate, Eunício Oliveira (PMDB-CE), who only votes in the event of a tie.

Neves was suspended from office and was under house arrest at night, since the end of September.

He had also been forced to hand over his passport to the Supreme Court, could not leave the country or contact anyone under investigation or any other defendants related the proceeding against him.

In only one voting session, all those measures were overturned. The Senate's decision will be sent to the Supreme Court, which will notify Neves so that he can return to office. Neves was not present at the plenary session, seeing he was suspended.

Neves was caught on tape by JBS' Joesley Batista asking for R$ 2 million (US$ 625,000), and was accused of obstruction of Justice and passive corruption.

In view of possibly not having sufficient votes to reverse the court's decision, postponement of the case was on the table, only to be quickly dismissed by Neves' party members, fearing time would only make matters worse.

In the past few days, Neves received visits from PSDB senators and made calls to his allies, to monitor the Senate's willingness to reverse the STF's decisions. Soon after the announcement of the result, he started calling his allies to thank them for their support.

Translated by ANA BEATRIZ DEMARIA

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	Evaristo Sá/AFP
	Senator Aécio Neves was suspended from office and was under house arrest at night, since the end of September