by: João Marcelo
SAN PAOLO – Last weekend, demonstrations were held in several cities in the country, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, calling for the impeachment of the President of the Republic Jair Bolsonaro. On Saturday, left-wing groups and parties organized a motorcade in several capitals. In São Paulo the demonstration was on the main avenue of the city, and had 2500 cars, according to the organizers. In an interview with the UOL news portal, the general coordinator of the Central of Popular Movements (CMP) said that the demonstration had four main demands: “Fora Bolsonaro”, “Vacina Já”, the return of emergency aid and the protection of employment due restrictions during the pandemic. The national president of the Workers’ Party (PT), deputy Gleisi Hoffmann, who was present at the motorcade in São Paulo, called on the population to continue the pressure to open the impeachment process of the president. “For those who say that putting impeachment now is creating instability in Brazil, we have to answer that the instability is already happening and the crisis is serious. And the instability has a name: Jair Bolsonaro”. On Sunday, it was the turn of right-wing organizations to claim Bolsonaro’s departure. Groups such as the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL) and Vem pra Rua, which were protagonists in the demonstrations against the Dilma Rousseff government (PT), called for the acts that occurred, mainly, in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. On social media, MBL published the following text calling for the act. “Electoral fraud, handed over the government to the centre, made an alliance with Toffoli, Aras, Kassio, abandoned economic guidelines, abandoned the fight against corruption and sabotaged the fight against the pandemic”. The weekend protests take place at a time when the president’s popularity is shaking, as indicated by the survey conducted by Datafolha. 40% of the population considers the government to be bad or very bad. An 8% increase over the last survey conducted in early December. The approval rate also dropped from 37% in early December to 31% now in January.