In the wake of an historic impeachment vote in Brazil’s congress on Sunday, Professor Jeffrey Lesser offered historically-informed commentary for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article, “Brazil President Dilma Rousseff impeachment crisis: What happens next?” Lesser is a specialist in Brazilian history and currently Research Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo. Check out an excerpt below and the full piece here.

The vote was just the latest step, but a major step toward impeachment. Despite the vote, Rousseff remains the leader. Now the process moves to the Senate, which will vote on whether the upper chamber should put Rousseff on trial for impeachment. (Local news media report that 45 of the 81 senators have said they will vote to hold the impeachment trial.)

It could be about 40 days before that Senate vote is cast. But timing is very difficult to predict, says Jeffrey Lesser a professor of Brazilian history at Emory University and currently research professor at University of São Paulo,  Rousseff has challenged every step of this process. She had asked the country’s Supreme Federal Tribunal, Brazil’s highest court, to suspend the proceedings, but lost that decision. But she could go to the court again, on the grounds that the accusations are faulty.