Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff appeared to be heading for a political dead end yesterday after huge crowds took to the streets to call for her resignation.
Between one and 3mn people flooded the streets of Sao Paulo, Rio, Brasilia and some 400 other cities in Latin America’s biggest country on Sunday, according to conflicting data.
Turnout in Sao Paulo was estimated at 500,000 by the research centre Datafolha and 1.4mn by the Sao Paulo military police. The figures surpassed estimates by either organisation in previous opposition demonstrations.
Protesters said they were fed up with the country’s worst recession in 25 years, a massive corruption scandal unfolding at state oil company Petrobras and the government’s complete inability to pass laws in Congress.
The historic rebuff on the streets left Rousseff few options as another gruelling week started, with Congress geared up to relaunch stalled impeachment proceedings.
An attempt to impeach the country’s first female president began last year but fizzled out on technicalities. The Supreme Court was tomorrow or on Thursday expected to set out the rules, opening the door for Rousseff’s many enemies in the legislature to ramp up the pressure.
The impeachment case rests on allegations that Rousseff’s government illegally manipulated accounts to boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign.
During the first push last year analysts reckoned that Rousseff could still get enough votes from sympathetic deputies to survive. That is becoming increasingly unclear.
Her Workers’ Party is in a shaky coalition with the bigger PMDB. On Saturday, a PMDB congress discussed pulling out altogether, with a decision to be taken in 30 days.
Relations between the Workers’ Party and the PMDB have been strained for a long time. But the PMDB leader Michel Temer is Rousseff’s vice president and as such would replace her automatically should she be impeached - a tempting incentive for the biggest party in Congress.
Analysts said all parties were watching the turnout on Sunday and that the big crowds could help push all but the most diehard Rousseff loyalists to support impeachment.
“This has been a very bad weekend for the government,” said analyst Sergio Praca at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio. “The demonstrations were very powerful... It’s the worst scenario possible for the government.”
The Workers’ Party itself is on the ropes.
Party founder and leftist icon, ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, faces money laundering charges related to the corruption probe at Petrobras. Prosecutors indicate that his legal troubles are only just beginning and there has been a request to a judge that he be put into preventative detention.
Rousseff needs Lula to maintain her links to the party base, where she is unpopular.
As the party takes hammering upon hammering, pro-government demonstrations planned for this Friday could be a moment of truth - when the depth or growing absence of support for Rousseff will be made clear.
Rousseff herself made only a brief public reaction to Sunday’s dramatic scenes.
In a one paragraph statement late Sunday, she praised the peaceful crowds for showing the country’s ability to “coexist with different opinions.”
The problem for Dilma, as she is known to nearly everyone in Brazil, is that increasingly the only opinion left is that she needs to go.