Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is looking in the face of a near certain eviction from power after she lost a crucial impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress.
The opposition motion seeking the embattled president's trial in the Senate was passed with the mandatory two-thirds majority on Sunday.
Roussef now faces a crucial vote in the Senate in May where a motion seeking her trial on charges of manipulating budget accounts will need to be ratified by a simple majority.
If the president loses the Senate vote she will be suspended and replaced by Vice President Michel Temer. If Roussef is found guilty in the Senate trial she will be removed from office and vice-president Temer will complete her term until 2018.
The opposition motion seeking president's trial got secured 367 votes in parliament while Roussef's supporters secured 167 votes.
The leftist Workers' Party, which has been in power for the last 13 years, said "the fight continues now in the Senate."
"The fight is going to continue now in the streets and in the federal Senate. We lost because the coup-mongers were stronger," Jose Guimaraes, the leader of the Workers' Party in the lower house, said, according to Reuters.
Roussef, 68, is accused of airbrushing government accounts to make her performance look impressive ahead of her re-election campaign two years ago.
Brazil's first female president defended herself in a newspaper column saying her opponents "want to convict an innocent woman and save the corrupt".
