Brasilia, Shawwal 9, 1437, Jul 14, 2016, SPA -- Brazil's Chamber of Deputies Thursday elected Rodrigo Maia, a close ally of the country's acting president Michel Temer, to be its new leader, dpa reported. Maia was elected by a 285-170 vote in the early hours of the morning to replace Eduardo Cunha, the disgraced legislator who was the architect of the effort to impeach the country's suspended President Dilma Rousseff. Cunha resigned last week amid accusations he had obstructed authorities investigating him for corruption. Brazil has for months been mired in a severe institutional crisis amid tit-for-tat political feuds and intrigues. Rousseff was suspended from office in May pending impeachment proceedings over alleged budget irregularities. She and her allies have called the proceedings a coup. Temer, her vice-president, had earlier led a coalition revolt against her and took over as interim president during her suspension. Brazil's Senate is expected to decide whether to remove Rousseff from office in August. Cunha, Rousseff's political arch-rival, had driven the move to impeach Rousseff, even as he himself was the focus of a corruption investigation. The evangelical politician is under investigation for his alleged participation in a corruption scheme linked to the state-owned oil company Petrobras. -- SPA 21:33 LOCAL TIME 18:33 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w