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Brazil's embattled Cunha quits lower house speakership
Brazilian suspended House Speaker Eduardo Cunha arrives at a news conference at the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, July 7, 2016. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
By Maria Carolina Marcello
07/07/2016
BRASILIA (Reuters) - The corruption-tainted speaker of the lower house of Brazil's Congress announced his resignation on Thursday, ending months of political bickering that threatened to deepen a legislative stalemate blamed for keeping the economy mired in recession.
An emotional Eduardo Cunha, who had already been suspended from his speakership duties, said with a cracking voice that he was the victim of persecution for starting the process to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.
"Only my resignation can put an end to this endless instability. The lower house cannot bear to wait forever," Cunha told reporters in a hastily called news conference.
Interim President Michel Temer, who replaced Rousseff while she stands trial in the Senate, now faces the tough task of forging consensus from his broad center-right coalition on new leadership. The new speaker must be elected by the lower house.
A bruising leadership race could slow Temer's efforts to approve sweeping economic reforms to pull the economy out of what looks to be its worst recession in more than a century.
A congressional ethics committee last month recommended stripping Cunha of his seat and banning him from politics for eight years for lying about Swiss bank accounts linked to a vast political graft scandal. The full chamber was expected to expel him in mid-July.
Cunha is the only sitting lawmaker so far to be charged by the Supreme Court with corruption in the sprawling bribery scandal focused on state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, also known as Petrobras.
In May the Supreme Court removed Cunha temporarily from the speakership for using his position to obstruct the graft investigation.
(Reporting by Alonso Soto and Silvio Cascione; Editing by Tom Brown)
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