Thousands of Brazilians take to streets calling for Bolsonaro to be impeached

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities Saturday, calling for the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, to be impeached.

In Rio de Janeiro, the country’s second-largest city, huge crowds paraded through the downtown area in a sign of growing discontent with the president â€" a right-wing firebrand whom critics accuse of destroying Brazil’s economy, environment and world standing.

“We have come to shout at the top of our voices: Bolsonaro’s place is behind bars,” Carlos Lupi, president of Brazil’s Democratic Labor Party (PDT), told thousands of flag-bearing demonstrators, according to a statement released by the party after the protest.

Similar scenes played out in towns and cities across the country, including Sao Paulo and Brasília, as surging inflation in essential goods like food and electricity have added to discontent about the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The president has cut taxes on rifles but not for basic food,” José Manuel Ferreira Barbosa, a 63-year-old decorator from Belford Roxo, a city on Rio’s north side, told the British newspaper. He carried a banner that read: “Rifles no, food yes.”

Brazil has become increasingly polarized by Bolsonaro in recent months as the economic situation worsens. Many Brazilians blame him for the country’s disastrous coronavirus response, which has left more than 597,000 people dead â€" second only to the United States.

Bolsonaro had said his hands-off pandemic response would protect Brazil’s poor. But they’ve ended up suffering the most: Unemployment, hunger, inflation, interest rates and inequality have all increased during his time in office. Brazil is in the grips of its worst drought in nearly a century, and faces power rationing and outages because of reduced water levels at hydroelectric stations.

Bolsonaro has also been accused of promoting unproven virus treatments and stoking anti-vaccine sentiment. He remains defiantly unvaccinated and says he does not need to get vaccinated because he recovered from a mild case of covid-19 last year.

He faced accusations from opposition lawmakers that he embarrassed his country after a tumultuous visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly last month, during which he broke U.N. rules that asked for all those who entered the General Assembly Hall to be fully vaccinated under an “honor system.” He was pictured eating pizza on the sidewalk â€" in a move observers speculated was to avoid indoor restaurants, where New York’s vaccine mandate applies â€" and was forced to leave his health minister behind in the United States after he tested positive for the virus and went into isolation.

Saturday’s protests were promoted by leftist parties and some union movements, and took place exactly a year from the next presidential election, due on Oct. 2, 2022. Recent polls indicate he would lose next year’s presidential election by a landslide if the results are repeated on election day.

Despite the growing opposition, Bolsonaro retains a hardcore base. Thousands turned out in support of the president in rallies he called for last month, timed to coincide with Brazil’s Independence Day. Some analysts likened the show of support to President Donald Trump’s actions ahead of the 2020 elections.

Trump last month praised Bolsonaro and his sons as “great people.” One of Bolsonaro’s sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, also a Brazilian politician, went so far in his support for Trump as to hoist a Trump-Pence campaign sign shortly after the 2016 election, The Washington Post previously reported. At far-right rallies all over Brazil, where many have called for supreme court judges and opposition lawmakers to be removed, the American flag is now a staple. Supporters wear cowboy hats and belt buckles emblazoned with Texas longhorns.

More than 130 impeachment requests have been filed since the start of Bolsonaro’s administration in 2019, but key conservatives allies in the National Congress have refused to take any of them up.

Bolsonaro has portrayed Supreme Court justices and other powerful critics as wrongdoers who are paving the way for the return of his political archrival, the leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has surged in recent polls and is widely expected to run in next year’s election.

“It is very painful to see that health and education are being destroyed, and there are many starving people in the country,” Marilena Magnano, a 75-year-old retiree, told the Associated Press. “We need Bolsonaro out of the government. His time has passed.”

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