Brazil's lower house of Congress has voted oto back the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff for breaking budget laws.

Rousseff's opponents reached the 342-vote mark needed to send her to the Senate for trial, a major step towards potentially ending 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule in the divided nation.

Brazil's presidential chief of staff Jaques Wagner said the government was confident the Senate would dismiss the impeachment vote.

The vote for impeachment was a setback for Brazilian democracy and was "orchestrated" by her opponents who never accepted her re-election victory in 2014, Wagner said in a statement.

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