It's Official: The System Works

IMPEACHING A CHIEF EXECUTIVE IS A DEADLY SERIous matter, so it would have been understandable if Brazilians had felt dejected after the lower house of Congress ousted President Fernando Collor de Mello. Instead, the country exploded into cheers and celebrated the impeachment as a victory for democracy. Before the Congress building in Brasilia, a crowd of 100,000, many of them young people, hugged and danced.

< The impeachment vote in the Chamber of Deputies was a lopsided 441 to 38. Collor is suspended for up to six months, during which the Senate will try him on charges of corruption. Vice President Itamar Franco, a longtime Senator, became Acting President. Collor did not appear publicly after the vote, but Justice Minister Celio Borja said the President took the news "with great dignity." He said Collor does not plan to step down permanently unless the Senate finds him guilty, an outcome most political leaders now think is inevitable. In fact, Collor's trials may not end in the Senate. Attorney General Aristides Junqueira is preparing to file criminal charges of corruption and malfeasance.

It is the first presidential impeachment in Brazil's 103-year history as a republic. The country had held high hopes for Collor, 43, who was elected in 1989 on an anticorruption platform. But last August a special congressional commission found strong evidence that Collor had accepted $6.5 million from a slush fund operated by his former campaign fund raiser. Now the country's hopes -- well founded so far -- are for an orderly transition of power.