Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, tries to resign amidst corruption charges, but is then impeached.
Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello (Brazilian Portuguese: [feʁˈnɐ̃du aˈfõsu ˈkɔloʁ dʒi ˈmɛlu]; born 12 August 1949) is a Brazilian politician who served as the 32nd president of Brazil from 1990 to 1992, when he resigned in a failed attempt to stop his impeachment trial by the Brazilian Senate. Collor was the first President democratically elected after the end of the Brazilian military government. He became the youngest president in Brazilian history, taking office at the age of 40. After he resigned from the presidency, the impeachment trial on charges of corruption continued. Collor was found guilty by the Senate and disqualified from holding elected office for eight years (1992–2000). He was later acquitted of ordinary criminal charges in his judicial trial before Brazil's Supreme Federal Court, for lack of valid evidence.
Fernando Collor was born into a political family. He is the son of the former Senator Arnon Affonso de Farias Mello and Leda Collor (daughter of former Labour Minister Lindolfo Collor, led by his father, former governor of Alagoas and proprietor of the Arnon de Mello Organization, a media conglomerate which manages the state-wide television station TV Gazeta de Alagoas, the affiliate of TV Globo in the state.)
"Collor" is a Portuguese adaptation of the German surname Köhler, from his maternal grandfather Lindolfo Leopoldo Boeckel Collor.
Collor has served as Senator for Alagoas since February 2007. He first won election in 2006 and was reelected in 2014. In August 2017, Collor was accused by the Brazil's Supreme Federal Court of receiving around US$9 million in bribes between 2010 and 2014 from Petrobras subsidiary BR Distributor.