For the first time in the history of the American Congress, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, was removed from office on Tuesday, who became a victim of fratricidal quarrels in his party, reports AFP.

The procedural maneuver, very rarely used in the history of the US parliament, came after Congress passed the administration’s preliminary budget on Saturday, which many conservatives opposed.

After a tense debate between conservatives in the House of Representatives, 216 elected representatives voted for his removal, including 8 Republicans.

Immediately after this unprecedented result, a smiling Kevin McCarthy was surrounded by fellow party members who hugged and shook his hand.

The vote opens a period of great upheaval in the lower house, where a replacement must be chosen, which promises to be very difficult.

The vote came after Matt Goetz, a member of the American hard right, filed a motion to impeach the speaker of the House of Representatives, despite being a member of his party.

This Florida governor-elect accused Kevin McCarthy of negotiating with Democrats on a preliminary budget to fund the federal administration, which many conservatives opposed.

He also accused the Republican leader of making a “secret deal” with President Joe Biden regarding a possible package of measures for Ukraine.

But the right wing of the Republican Party categorically opposes the allocation of additional funds to Kyiv, arguing that the money should be used to solve the migration crisis on the US-Mexico border.

And it didn’t matter that the vast majority of Kevin McCarthy’s party publicly supported him: Trump’s friends had de facto veto power in the House of Representatives, given the very weak Republican majority in that institution.

There was no democratic support

For a while, McCarthy seemed to think he would save his seat, hoping that political calculations would prevail and that he could get Democrats to support him, if only that, in exchange for concessions.

It was a lost cause.

“The Republican Party must end the internal war in the House of Representatives,” Democratic Party leader Hakeem Jeffries said after a long meeting with his caucus.

“There are many reasons to let the Republicans solve their own problems. Let’s let them wallow in the quagmire of their incompetence and inability to govern,” said uncompromising progressive MP Pramila Jayapal.

In a sign of the divisions that are tearing Republicans apart, conservative lawmakers have alternated between supporting and opposing Kevin McCarthy.

“We are on the edge of the abyss. We only have a few minutes left to recover and realize the grave danger,” urged Republican Tom McClintock before the vote.

If the impeachment motion passes, “the House will be paralyzed,” he said, “Democrats will revel in Republican dysfunction and the public will be outraged, and rightfully so.”

His colleague Tom Cole warned of the “chaos” the House and Republicans would find themselves in if McCarthy was impeached.

“Chaos is President McCarthy,” countered Matt Goetz. “Chaos is someone you can’t trust.”