BRASILIA, Brazil _ Brazil President Michel Temer has secured enough votes in an ongoing lower house session to avoid being put on trial for corruption, paving the way for him to cling to power until his term ends in December 2018.
Temer already obtained sufficient votes from deputies in favor of shelving the charges to make it mathematically impossible for the opposition to reach the two-thirds majority it needs to put him on trial and force him to step down. An official victory once voting is concluded would allow the president to at least temporarily pivot his attention toward economic reforms needed to fix Brazil's battered public finances.
The Brazilian real gained 0.4 percent against the U.S. dollar in Wednesday trading as investors awaited the final voting tally as an indication of whether Temer still has enough congressional support to push for reforms, Morgan Stanley strategists including Gordian Kemen wrote in a note to clients. Fewer than 250 pro-Temer votes would be negative for markets, they said.
Leaders of the ruling coalition said they expect around 280 or 290 votes by the end of the day, not far from the 308 needed to approve the government's flagship pension reform, considered essential by the finance ministry to put Brazil's rising debt on a more sustainable path.
Temer, who two months ago looked like he could be ousted or forced to resign, applied all the political savvy he acquired during half a century in public office to rally support. With his government's approval rating at only 5 percent, he personally lobbied over 160 legislators in recent weeks. On Tuesday he had lunch with at least 50 deputies from the agriculture caucus, offering to increase the government-mandated use of sugar cane-based ethanol.
Yet with an eye on next year's general election, many legislators even in his own coalition tried to distance themselves from the 76-year-old constitutional lawyer who has seen numerous allies go to jail as a result of the three-year anti-corruption wave that has swept the country.
The Brazilian Social Democracy Party, one of the largest in his coalition, allowed its members to vote as they wish but recommended they accept the charges against Temer.
Still, Temer may have only a small window of opportunity for meaningful progress. Lower house speaker Rodrigo Maia has said that August may be the last chance to vote on the pension reform.
Also, top prosecutor Rodrigo Janot has indicated he may bring new charges against Temer before leaving office in September. That would push the government back to square one, restarting a process in Congress that took five weeks and ended with Wednesday's vote.
