14 Presidents From Around the World Who Have Already Been Impeached

Banisadr was the first president of the post-revolution Islamic Republic of Iran. The Irani parliament was angered by his opposition to the taking of American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and the fact that he had complained to the Ayatollah Khomeini about the incompetence of some government ministers. After parliament impeached him, the Ayatollah ordered him arrested, but he fled to France, avoiding capture.

After investigating Clinton for a number of financial and personal offenses, independent counsel Kenneth Starr submitted a report to the House Judiciary Committee claiming that he had proof of 11 impeachable offenses. The House agreed to accept two of them, both having to do with Clinton’s sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and his subsequent statements about that relationship under oath. The House voted to impeach him but the Senate was unable to muster the required two-thirds majority to convict him, and he served out his term.

One of two Brazilian chief executives to be impeached in the past 27 years (see Dilma Vana Rousseff, below), de Mello was criticized for failing to improve Brazil’s dire economic situation, and then accused of corruption. He was impeached by a margin of 441 to 38 in the lower house of Brazil’s congress. He resigned three months later as his trial in the Brazilian senate commenced.

A well-known actor in his native country, Estrada won election by a landslide in 1998. Two years later, however, he was charged with taking in as much as $12 million in illegal kickbacks. Secret bank accounts were subsequently discovered, and some sources estimated that the amount might have been as high as $60 million, but Estrada won a court battle to keep the records sealed. He was initially acquitted in impeachment proceedings, but public outcry caused him to resign.

Though he won praise for his economic policies and his opposition to communist rebels, Fujimori was accused of embezzling government funds and committing war crimes against the insurgents. In 2000, as allegations mounted, he fled to Japan and faxed back his resignation. The Peruvian government refused to accept it, and instead impeached him on grounds of “permanent moral incapacity.” He was extradited to Peru from Chile in 2007, and convicted of numerous offenses. He was pardoned in 2017, but the pardon was later overturned and he is currently in jail.

The first female president of her country, Guen-hye was targeted for impeachment after reports came out linking one of her aides to financial misdeeds. In addition, the aide was the daughter of a cult leader, and was said to influence Guen-hye’s decisions in an inappropriate way. Guen-hye was impeached and ousted for “acts that violated the Constitution and laws.” The following year she was sentenced to 24 years in prison for bribery and other offenses.

The 17th president of the United States clashed repeatedly with Congress in the years following the Civil War, culminating with his veto of legislation that would have protected the rights of newly freed slaves. Furious, the House of Representatives voted to impeach him. Even though his foes in the Republican Party had more than enough Senate seats to convict him, many of them supported his policies, so the required two-thirds majority was not attained and Johnson remained in office.

A former Catholic priest whose election marked the first peaceful transition of power in Paraguay in nearly two centuries and ended decades of power by the right-wing Colorado Party, Lugo promised to make life better for his country’s poor. After clashes between farmers and the police left at least 17 people dead, however, members of congress from both the Colorado Party the rival Liberal Party, advanced a motion to impeach Lugo, accusing him of a “poor performance” during the clashes.

Though he established himself as a neo-liberal reformer upon taking office in 2003, Paksas was subsequently accused of having ties to organized crime in Russia. He was also condemned for granting citizenship to a Russian entrepreneur following a reported $400,000 campaign donation. Parliament removed him less than 14 months after he took office.

Second-term Venezuelan president Pérez survived two military coup attempts (one led by the country’s future socialist leader Hugo Chávez) but was impeached in 1993 and placed under house arrest for diverting public funds into private bank accounts in New York. He was released after two years and elected to the Senate, but he fled the country soon after.

Rouseff has the dubious distinction of being the first female president anywhere to be impeached. She was accused of corruption during her stint as head of Petrobras, the state-run energy company, before she became president. She tried to distance herself from the accusations, but she was ultimately impeached by a 61 to 20 vote based on charges that she broke budgetary laws by using funds from state banks to boost public spending.

Wahid faced numerous accusations of corruption, leading up to the allegation that he had looted as much as $4 million from Bulog, the state-run food agency. Within Indonesia, the scandal was referred to as “Buloggate.” Facing ouster, he sought to declare a state of emergency, but one of his ministers blocked the move and troops surrounded the presidential palace while he was impeached by the legislature.

Yanukovych was initially declared president in 2004, but following accusations of outside interference in the election, he was ousted in favor of Viktor Yushchenko. Yanukovych rebounded, becoming prime minister in 2006 and assuming the presidency again in 2010. He was accused of abusing power in 2013, and early the following year fled to Russia claiming that he feared for his life. Hours later, the Ukrainian parliament voted to impeach him.

Yeltsin was elected as the first president of the Russian Federation following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Congress of People’s Deputies maintained that his policies were leading the country to economic disaster and in March of 1993 asked the Constitutional Court to impeach him. The motion failed to gain enough votes. Yeltsin went on to dissolve the Congress, an act declared unconstitutional later that year by the country’s new permanent parliament, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. The Soviet formally expelled Yeltsin from the presidency as a result, but Yeltsin ordered the army to shell and storm the parliament building, and ultimately the Soviet too was dissolved. The final attempt to impeach Yeltsin came in May, when the State Duma, the lowest house of parliament, was asked to vote on five charges against him. None of them gained the requisite number of votes. Yeltsin voluntarily resigned at the end of 1999, appointing Vladimir Putin as his successor.