Chilean President Miguel Juan Sebastian Pineira was ousted this evening (Tuesday) by the lower house of Congress in the country, due to revelations of problematic conduct on his part in Pandora's documents.
The impeachment is expected to lead to a trial in the Senate, the upper house of the Chilean Congress, where the president holds a majority and will likely be acquitted of the charges against him.
The dismissal passed with the minimum number of representatives in the lower house of 155 seats, who voted in favor.
78 members of the opposition voted in favor of the removal and no member of the ruling party voted in favor.
Despite the limited political significance of the removal, it is a symbolic achievement for the opposition in the midst of a presidential election campaign.
Paneira himself will not run in the presidential election, this is because two consecutive terms are prohibited under the Chilean constitution.
The president, a businessman and billionaire belonging to the moderate right in the country, is suspected of selling his stake in a huge mining company using a straw company in the Virgin Islands.
The story became complicated after it became clear that Paneira refused to declare the mine area a nature reserve, according to the suspicions, due to the fact that he was waiting for the sale of his share in the company that owned the mines.
The president's office claimed that his tenure did not begin at all when he signed the sale deal.
Paneira is not the first head of state to be harmed by the revelations of Pandora's documents, a huge body of millions of documents pointing to companies using tax havens.
Former Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babish lost the country's elections following a storm that erupted in the country following revelations about the economic conduct of and as part of the leaked documents.
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