Chile’s Chamber of Deputies has approved a motion to impeach outgoing President Sebastian Pinera over alleged shady business deals that were seemingly exposed in the Pandora Papers leak.
The impeachment motion was narrowly passed by Chile’s lower house early on Tuesday following nearly 22 hours of debate. The motion was supported and voted for by 78 MPs. 67 opposed it, three abstained.
The motion is now set to head to the country’s Senate for approval, where it will need to get two thirds of votes to be passed. It is likely that the Senate will vote to impeach the president just days before November’s presidential election.
Billionaire businessman Pinera will not partake in the polls, since the incumbent president cannot seek immediate re-election, according to Chile’s constitution.
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Pinera is being accused of leaking the Pandora Papers. The cache of documents relating to offshore transactions contained nearly 12,000,000 pages. It was alleged that several top officials were included in the exposed list of people with secret offshore accounts.
According to leaked documents, Pinera participated in the Dominga sale via a company that was owned by his kids to Carlos Delano. Delano is a close friend of Pinera. The British Virgin Islands was an offshore paradise where a large portion of this deal occurred.
The second impediment against Pinera was made during this current term. The president was impeached for cracking down on the anti-inequality demonstrations that had taken over the country during his term. This unsuccessful attempt to impeach him failed in 2019.
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