Eduardo Cunha was first suspended in May.
Brazil's lower house debated Monday whether to unseat former speaker Eduardo Cunha, who spearheaded the drive to impeach president Dilma Rousseff and now faces his own graft-stained demise.
Cunha, who is often compared to the dark, manipulative hero Frank Underwood of the hit Netflix series "House of Cards," used his position as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies to put Rousseff on an unstoppable path to impeachment.
His enemies accuse him of using his power to launch impeachment proceedings as a trump card to stave off his own prosecution for allegedly taking millions of dollars in bribes.
The 58-year-old conservative lawmaker, who is allied with Congress's Evangelical Christian wing, resigned from his position as speaker in July amid swirling accusations of corruption linked to the huge state oil company Petrobras.
He must now face the music in Congress for having "lied" to other lawmakers about his possession of secret Swiss bank accounts. Cunha denies all wrongdoing.
Monday's session opened at 7:00 pm (2200 GMT) -- only for the new speaker, Rodrigo Maia, to put it on hold until a quorum of 420 deputies is present.
Lawmakers looked set for a marathon session stretching well into the night and possibly beyond.
To strip Cunha of his seat, 257 of the Chamber's 513 members must vote against him.
Cunha was first suspended in May, less than a month after lawmakers voted to open impeachment proceedings against Rousseff, Brazil's first woman president.
Rousseff was definitively removed from office on August 31, and replaced by her vice president turned nemesis Michel Temer.
The new center-right administration brought an end to 13 years of leftist rule in Brazil.
'Evangelical 'Gangster'Cunha has used a variety of stalling tactics to slow the proceedings that could lead to his ouster from Congress. The process has already dragged on for almost a year, the longest in Brazilian history.
Analysts say he will play his final card Monday by asking his peers to delay a vote on his fate until after October municipal elections.
He may also argue for a simple suspension, rather than the loss of his seat.
As a last resort, he could also ask that lawmakers allow him to keep the right to hold public office -- a right Rousseff also kept after being stripped of her job, despite the country's constitution calling for lengthy bans.
But polls released over the weekend show that many of Cunha's onetime allies have deserted him.
The daily O Globo forecast his enemies would oust him with 40 votes to spare. About 20 of those are from his PMDB party, the biggest in Brazil and also Temer's party.
Rousseff, from the leftist Workers' Party, accused both Temer and Cunha of orchestrating a coup against her.
Thanks largely to Cunha's leadership, the lower house voted heavily in favor last year of opening an impeachment trial against Rousseff, on charges that she illegally manipulated government accounts.
On April 17, the day Rousseff's impeachment trial was authorized, Cunha was the target of a barrage of insults in Congress from leftist deputies, who shouted "Gangster!" and "Putschist!"
Cunha is considered one of the best wheelers-and-dealers in Brasilia, building a considerable support base including the powerful agriculture lobby, fellow evangelicals and the so-called "bullet caucus" of politicians with police and army connections.
He won prominence promoting a conservative a social agenda that included a "Heterosexual Pride Day" and restrictions on abortion. He has been reported to own no less than 150 Internet domains using the name "Jesus."
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