Brasilia, May 7 (RHC)-- Twelve of the 21 members of a special committee recommending Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment to the Senate face charges of corruption and other crimes. The vote on Friday paves the way for a blow to democracy by handing control over to Vice President Michel Temer -- a corrupt official barred from running for public office for the next eight years.

Of the 21-member-committee giving the green light to impeachment, over half, or 12 officials, face charges for corruption and other crimes. Five senators, making up nearly one quarter of the committee, are involved in the Petrobras state oil corruption probe known as Operation Car Wash that has been at the center of the country’s fraud scandals for the past two years.

Of the 12 senators on the committee facing charges, eight members voted in favor of impeaching the president, and as are three of the five implicated in the Car Wash scandal, including the committee rapporteur Antonio Anastasia.

Two of the senators in the committee linked to corruption or crimes are part of the largest bloc, the conservative Brazilian Democratic Movement Party or PMDB, the party of the leader of the impeachment attempt, Eduardo Cunha, who was suspended from his post as speaker of the lower house on Thursday over charges of intimidating lawmakers and hampering anti-corruption probes.