By Natalia Ramos
22 hours ago
Sao Paulo (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of protesters
demanded Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's resignation Sunday,
blaming her and the leftist Workers' Party for runaway corruption and
looming recession in Latin America's biggest country.
Crowds singing the national anthem and chanting
"Dilma out!" paraded through the capital Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, the
country's largest city Sao Paulo and elsewhere across Brazil.
With
some counts still incomplete, the G1 news site reported the latest
police estimate for turnout to be 866,000 in dozens of cities and towns.
Organizers claimed a total of 1.9 million, including a million in Sao Paulo, where police counted only 350,000.
It
was the third major anti-Rousseff protest this year, with 600,000
demonstrators taking to the streets in April and at least one million in
March.
Less than a year into her second term, Rousseff is all but
a lame duck, with the opposition considering controversial impeachment
proceedings, and the country's elite caught in a vast embezzlement
scandal centered on state-oil company Petrobras.
Less than a year into her second term, Dilma Rousseff is on the ropes as the world's seventh-lar …
"We can't take this corruption any longer," said Rogerio
Chequer, leader of the Vem Pra Rua (Go on the Streets) group, which
helped organize the protests.
"If Congress has even a minimum of
sense, it will decide on impeachment," he said at the Sao Paulo march,
where many in the crowd wore the national football team's famous yellow
shirt.
Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla, has likened
impeachment threats to a coup plot and insists she will not be forced
from office.
Late Sunday, her spokesman Edinho Silva said "the government sees these demonstrations as part of normal democracy."
- Corruption and carnival -
The depth of anger against President Dilma Rousseff was undeniable on August 16, 2015, when almost a …
These are dark days for Brazil, which hosts the Summer Olympics in Rio next year.
The world's seventh-largest economy is sliding into recession, its credit rating reduced to near junk status.
Austerity
measures have replaced the economic go-go years fueled by Chinese
demand for commodities, while the ever-expanding Petrobras bribes and
embezzlement probe is fueling a deep political crisis.
Prosecutors
have brought charges against a who's who of Brazilian movers and
shakers, including the billionaire head of the global construction
company Odebrecht and a navy admiral once tasked with overseeing a
secret nuclear program.
Rousseff's Workers' Party has been badly
hit by the scandal and she has been tainted by association, even if not
directly implicated.
Unionists and Workers Party members take part in a demonstration supporting democracy in front of th …
Her party's treasurer was among those arrested in April.
The
boisterous but peaceful crowds in towns and cities across the country
pinned the blame on Rousseff, illustrating how Brazil's "Iron Lady" has
become the least popular president in modern times, with single-digit
ratings.
In Rio, there was a carnival-like mood. Samba music
blasted, some protesters carried surfboards, others rode skateboards and
many wore bikinis or bathing suits.
But protesters said their opposition to Rousseff and the Workers' Party is serious.
"They're looting Brazil, stealing everything," said Jorge Portugal, 63, who is retired from a job in marketing.
Demonstrators protest against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and the ruling Workers Party in Por …
In Brasilia, retired engineer Elino Alves de Moraes, 77, called for Rousseff and her "gang" to be jailed.
At
a rally in Belo Horizonte, the man who narrowly lost to Rousseff in her
deeply divisive 2014 reelection, Aecio Neves, said the protests show
that "Brazil has woken up."
But one of the most popular heroes for
the opposition masses was not Neves or even a politician -- it was
Sergio Moro, the 43-year-old judge handling the Petrobras cases.
"We are all Moro," placards read, and "Power to Sergio Moro!"
"Judge Moro is the country's salvation," said one Sao Paulo protester, Jose Freitas, 88.
- Impeachment threat -
Rousseff is struggling to stay afloat. The question is whether opponents dare drag her all the way down.
A
key figure in her fragile governing coalition, House Speaker Eduardo
Cunha, defected in July and is considering whether to pull the trigger
on impeachment proceedings.
Analysts say Cunha -- under
investigation for allegedly demanding a $5 million bribe -- is waiting
to be sure that Congress would follow his lead, while Rousseff is racing
to negotiate a truce.
One possible relief for her came earlier
this week when she and Senate President Renan Calheiros -- under
investigation in the Petrobras affair -- agreed to market-pleasing
reforms.
The deal took Rousseff ever further from her socialist roots, but could help lure her right-wing opponents from the cliff edge.
"The
middle classes want to kick her out of power in any way, but to what
end?" asked Andre Perfeito, head economist at Gradual Investimentos.
"In
business circles and the elite, there's an idea that it would be even
worse if she left. It doesn't mean they're for Rousseff, but that
getting rid of her would be even riskier."
Deu no Estadão
Jorge Béja
