Mammoth demonstrations across Brazil are putting even more pressure on embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, as she heads into a tough week for her attempt to survive impeachment proceedings in congress.
According to police estimates, a total of 3 million people took to the streets in 200 cities on Sunday calling on the president to resign amid widespread anger over corruption investigations and the worst recession in years.
Sometime this week, Brazilian lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a Rousseff foe, is expected to form a commission to begin impeachment proceedings over allegations of fiscal mismanagement. He does not have any say on the panel’s membership, but on Saturday members of his PMDB party pledged to be more independent from Rousseff’s administration.
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Rousseff, who has said she would not resign, is also under pressure from members of her own Workers’ Party, whose leaders want her mentor and predecessor as Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to intervene by taking a Cabinet post and bringing in others of his choice. Yet Silva is awaiting a decision by a Sao Paulo judge on whether he might be detained on corruption charges.
Sunday’s protests add to the already-difficult position of Rousseff, who in addition to the impeachment effort is faced with a sprawling investigation by federal prosecutors into corruption at state-run oil giant Petrobras that has moved closer to her inner circle in recent weeks.
In a statement after Sunday’s protests, Rousseff said: “The peaceful character of this Sunday’s demonstrations shows the maturity of a country that knows how to co-exist with different opinions and knows how to secure respect to its laws and institutions.”
The largest demonstration took place in Brazil’s economic capital, Sao Paulo, a bastion of simmering dissatisfaction with Rousseff and the Workers’ Party. Datafolha polling agency estimated about 500,000 people took part in the demonstration, while police estimated turnout at nearly three times that number.
About 1 million people joined the anti-Rousseff demonstration in Rio de Janeiro, organizers estimated.
Analysts said the strong turnout could lead to the unraveling of her fragile governing coalition.
“There is a situation of ungovernability,” said Francisco Fonseca, a political science professor at Pontifical Catholic University in Sao Paulo. “The president has few cards.”
Fonseca said that the protests showed a “generalized discontent with the political system” without necessarily shoring up any particular opposition party or politician.
Crowds in the yellow and green hues of the Brazilian flag brandished signs reading “Workers’ Party out,” but demonstrators across Brazil stressed that their anger extended well beyond Rousseff and her party, saying the “car wash” investigation into corruption at Petrobras has compromised the entire political class.
“Of course I want to see Rousseff booted out,” said Maria de Lima Pimenta, a retired schoolteacher who was at the anti-Rousseff march along Rio’s Copacabana Beach. “But then the problem becomes, who will replace her? They’re all crooks.”
Protest organizers also said that the movement is not linked to any opposition political party and signs endorsing parties were largely absent from the demonstrations.
Several top politicians did turn out, including Aecio Neves, the opposition politician who narrowly lost to Rousseff in the 2013 presidential run-off election, and Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin, but both were booed, and like other politicians who ventured out to the demonstrations, they beat a rapid retreat.
The uncontested star of the protests was Sergio Moro, the federal judge in charge of the Petrobras case. While demonstrators denounced politicians of all stripes who have been implicated in the scandal, many brandished signs thanking Moro.
The Petrobras scandal has ensnarled key figures from Rousseff’s party, including Silva, as well as members of opposition parties.
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