Large demonstrations in Brazil showed dissatisfaction with the government of President Dilma Rousseff. Even the world-famous Copacabana beach was overwhelmed by an unhappy crowd. Rousseff's approval rating has sunk to a new low, and many demand her impeachment as Brazil's once upbeat outlook withers under economic woes and a corruption scandal. Rio de Janeiro (dpa) - Brazilians voiced their feelings about President Dilma Rousseff bluntly in weekend rallies that might have been smaller than expected, but still demand the attention of a government in crisis.
"Out with Dilma," said one sign with crossed-out hammer-and-sickle symbols. Ricardo Barbosa held up the sign as he demonstrated in the Sunday sun on Rio de Janeiro's world-famous Copacabana beach. But he also had a verbal message: "The military must intervene now," he shouted. Most of the demonstrators where better-off Brazilians who probably did not vote for Rousseff last year. However, organizers said 2 million people poured into the streets although police said the number was about 879,000.
Either way it was not a lot in a country of over 200 million people, but in a country that does not have a long history of street protests the government would do well to take note. Protestors slammed Rousseff's Workers' Party (PT) and demanded that she and her predecessor, the once super-popular Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, be sent to prison over the massive corruption scandal around the state-controlled oil giant Petrobras. "Lula is starting to be de-canonized on the streets," analyst Josias de Souza wrote in the news website UOL.
Despite a major corruption case that involved paying bribes to legislators for their support in Congress, which landed several of his top aides in prison, Lula was re-elected and remained hugely popular after leaving office in 2010. His designated heir was Rousseff. On Sunday a massive effigy of the former Brazilian leader hovered over protesters in Brasilia. "It shows that the teflon that once protected his image is not impermeable to the hot oil of the [Petrobras] scandal," Souza wrote. Corruption has combined with higher taxes and inflation in the minds of many Brazilians.
Dressed in a Batman costume, Eron Melo, 34, summed up his demands. "The Workers Party built a huge corruption network, we have to pay more and more taxes and everything is getting more expensive," he said. People from the country's slums, the so-called favelas, millions of whom have profited most from PT-sponsored social programmes, were not easy to find in the demonstrations. Brazil reduced the proportion of its people living in poverty from 14 percent in 2008 to less than 9 percent now, although they too suffer rising supermarket prices. Brazil has had highs and lows over the last several decades. In 1941, Stefan Zweig, an Austrian Jew who escaped the Nazis, described it as "the land of the future."
He was referring to the tolerance and the peaceful coexistence he experienced between people of all races in the South American nation. However, the phrase has since been used to refer to a country that never quite seems to deliver on its promise and alternates between phases of hope and depression. These swings prevent its brilliant future from materializing. The 2000s saw Brazil as one of the world's most popular nations. Lula was a global personality and the country was chosen to host the 2010 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
The current phase is clearly a step back, marked by an explosive mix of political paralysis, the country's largest corruption scandal ever, accelerating inflation and economic collapse. Rousseff has stressed that she has no plans to resign. The former member of a leftist guerrilla group, who was arrested and tortured under the last Brazilian dictatorship, demands respect for her mandate after being elected with more than 51 per cent of the vote in October. However, she now has the support of only 8 per cent of Brazilians, according to opinion polls, and it remains open whether she can make it to the end of her term, in 2018.
In the Petrobras scandal various firms, including Brazil's largest construction companies, are believed to have paid billions of dollars in bribes to obtain lucrative contracts with Petrobras. To make matters worse for Rousseff, she was energy minister and chaired the Petrobras supervisory board under Lula. She denies any involvement in the corruption network, but it comes very close to home, and key officials of her PT have been arrested.
Rousseff also faces a political blockade amid growing opposition in Congress and a fallout with former allies. Lula is busy in a crisis-management role, but even he is not infallible. Lastly, there is a major economic crisis after Brazil invested too little in infrastructure, energy distribution and modernization during the good times. Sinking prices for natural resources have weakened economic performance in the world's seventh largest economy, and consumption and industrial production have both collapsed as has the country's reputation among rating agencies. Inflation has done the opposite: it climbed to 9.56 for the 12 months through July, the highest 12-month inflation rate since 2003. Overall, one might argue that Sunday's demonstrations are in fact the least of Rousseff's many problems.
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