Former Chamber of Deputies speaker Eduardo Cunha was the main driver behind the impeachment process that removed left-leaning Dilma Rousseff from Brazil's presidency.
Fernandes Mendonça, 47, replaces Fabio Medina Osorio, appointed by Temer in May when he assumed the presidency on an interim basis after now ex-President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from her duties to undergo impeachment, a process that resulted in her dismissal on August 31.
Former President of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies Eduardo Cunha addresses a plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia Sept. 12, 2016. Cunha has warned he could tell all in a plea bargain that could compromise many in a discredited political establishment.
At least three businessmen have said under interrogation that they paid bribes to Mr Cunha, which they deposited in his overseas accounts. Both men unsuccessfully tried to implicate Rousseff in the corruption scandals, but the PMDB and its members actually appeared more times than any other party in the investigation papers. That means he faces imminent arrest as part of the probe into corruption at Petrobras.
Cunha has used a variety of stalling tactics to slow the proceedings that could lead to his ouster from Congress. Analysts say he will play his final card Monday by asking his peers to delay a vote on his fate until after October municipal elections. "I am paying the price of having my mandate revoked because I allowed the impeachment process to go forward", he said.
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With the loss of his congressional seat, Cunha also loses a legislator's partial immunity from prosecution. But the vote on Mr. Cunha's fate was a reckoning with the breadth of corruption of which he stands charged, and the symbol he has become for rot among Brazil's politicians.
His plan to impeach Rousseff, his biggest political opponent, was eventually successful.
Against a backdrop of Brazil's worst recession in decades, the Petrobras scandal has ensnared some of the country's most powerful lawmakers and business executives.
Cunha had resigned as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies in July, and was already suspended as speaker in May by the Supreme Court, at the request of the attorney general, who accused him of obstructing justice and hiding millions of dollars in bribes in Swiss bank accounts. Some believe he has similar accounts in the US.
