Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, appeared to have the upper hand in a key vote by the lower chamber of congress on whether to suspend him and put him on trial over an alleged bribery scheme to line his pockets.

Despite a 5% approval rating in opinion polls and myriad calls for him to resign the last few months, Temer has been able to maintain most of his governing coalition in the chamber of deputies, where he was the presiding officer for many years.

A group of about 30 opposition lawmakers began Wednesday’s session with a small protest inside the chamber. Holding a sign saying, “Out with Temer!”, they stood in the center and shouted things like, “Temer should be in prison!”

Opposition lawmakers are hoping at least some of his support will be eroded by members having to publicly back a toxic president on national television. The major broadcaster Globo was transmitting the proceedings live and all 513 members of the house are up for election next year.

In the opening session, lawmakers were allowed a minute for opening statements. None spoke in favor of Temer, as was expected.

“Today is a historic day for the country,” said the opposition lawmaker Darci Pompeo de Mattos. “I want new, clean elections. Temer simply can’t stay in office.”

The opposition believes that if it can’t muster the necessary votes to suspend Temer, it can at least stall a resolution by keeping enough members from entering the chamber so a quorum can’t be reached. Only 51 were needed to open the proceedings, but 342 will be necessary to vote.

Temer’s lawyer, Antonio Claudio Mariz de Oliveira, tore into the charge against the president during his opening statement.

He said that a recording secretly made of the president in March was illegal and that a confiscated suitcase of money, allegedly destined for Temer, was a red herring.

“The suitcase of money was returned” by the police to the Temer aide who had been carrying it, said Mariz de Oliveira. “Why was it returned? Because the president is a good man, an innocent man.”

The numbers appeared to be on Temer’s side. To suspend the president, two-thirds of the 513 members, or 342, would have to vote against him. The government said it had at least 50 more supporters than necessary for Temer to survive.

The speaker of the house, Rodrigo Maia, a Temer ally, has repeatedly said the government has the votes to win.

“This will be resolved by Wednesday afternoon,” Maia said Tuesday, adding it would be a relief for the country to be able to move on.

The months-long crisis is the latest fallout from a colossal corruption investigation that has led to the jailing of many of the country’s elite, including Marcelo Odebrecht, the former CEO of the giant construction company Odebrecht, and Eduardo Cunha, the former lower house speaker, who is serving a 15-year sentence.

Temer, who was vice-president, came to power a little over a year ago when Dilma Rousseff was impeached and later ousted for illegally managing the federal budget.

Rousseff, a member of the left-leaning Workers’ party, accused Temer, from the ideologically barren Brazilian Democratic Movement party, of being behind her ouster. She said Temer and others wanted her removed in part because she refused to stop the sprawling “Car Wash” corruption investigation. Temer denied that.

Since taking power, Temer’s administration has been rocked by one scandal after another while still managing to move unpopular legislation forward, such as a loosening of labor rules and proposals to trim pension benefits.

The ambitious economic overhaul agenda, supported by the business class in Latin America’s largest economy, has helped the 76-year-old Temer stay in office so far despite the uproar over corruption allegations against him.

A recording purportedly made in March emerged in which Temer apparently supported the continued payment of hush money to Cunha, the powerful former speaker believed to have dirt on many politicians.

As part of the investigation, it came to light that Temer allegedly orchestrated a bribery scheme in which he would get payouts totaling millions of dollars for helping JBS, a giant meat-packing company, resolve a business issue. A former aide was arrested while carrying a suitcase with $150,000, much of which was allegedly destined for Temer.