Brazil’s new leader Michel Temer began his presidency in earnest Thursday vowing to heal the crisis-stricken Latin American giant after senators fired his defiant rival Dilma Rousseff in an emotional impeachment trial.

Temer, 75, was sworn in shortly after a majority of senators voted Wednesday in a highly charged session to remove the leftist Rousseff, 68, on grounds that she illegally manipulated the state budget.

Rousseff’s successor shrugged off her claims that he had led a “coup” to seize power from her Workers’ Party government, which has ruled Brazil for 13 years.

Sworn in to serve out the remainder of Rousseff’s four-year presidential term up to the end of 2018, Temer vowed to create jobs in the recession-stricken country and guarantee “political stability” to lure investors.

“My only interest is in handing over to my successor a country that is reconciled, pacified and growing economically,” he said in a pre-recorded television address, aired as he headed off to China for a G20 summit.

Rousseff told supporters at the Alvorada presidential palace on the outskirts of the capital Brasilia that she had committed no crime.

“They have convicted an innocent person and carried out a parliamentary coup,” she said, defiantly vowing that she’d “be back.”

In the day’s surprise twist, a separate vote to bar Rousseff from holding any public office for eight years failed to pass, meaning she could in theory re-enter political life.

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