In any event, the president and vice-president so elected merely finish what remains of the pending presidential term, and thereafter a new president and a new vice-president, chosen in the regular general elections, take office for a normal four-year term.
Just like the British Sovereign remains invested with the royal powers while the Counsellors of State are in place to handle the royal functions, so that there are two centers of authority capable of discharging those functions (the Sovereign himself or the Counsellors), when the president of Brazil travels abroad this automatically triggers the assumption of the office of acting president by the person next in line who is in Brazil, but in that specific case, dictated by constitutional custom and not by the express text of the Constitution, two subjective centers of authority remain in place: the president who is abroad and the acting president.
The admission of the charges requires the positive vote of two thirds of the members of the Chamber of Deputies.
The Senate, if it accepts to proceed with the trial (a decision that requires the positive vote of a simple majority of the Senators present), must then notify the president that he is now the accused in a trial of impeachment.
From the receipt of that notice, the president is suspended from office for a period of 180 days.
Constitutional custom and praxis in the federal and State levels dictate that, in cases when the head of the Executive Branch is unable to discharge the office for health reasons, temporary incapacity can be self declared by means of an executive message addressed to the Legislature; in such cases, the chief executive can reassume his powers by means of a further message to the Legislative Branch in which he declares that the temporary impediment has ceased and that he is thus resuming the duties of his office.
On 7 December 2016 the Supreme Court of Brazil ruled that defendants in criminal cases cannot serve in the order of presidential substitutes after the charges are accepted for trial.
At the time, Senator Renan Calheiros was serving as president of the Federal Senate and was a defendant in a criminal case before the Supreme Court, which meant he could not become acting president of the Republic and was thus excluded from the order of presidential substitutes.