The rallies were staged on Sunday in nearly 40 cities, including the capital, Brasilia, and the South American country’s wealthy industrial and financial hub Sao Paulo where about 30,000 reportedly participated in the protest.
One difference this time around is that impeachment proceedings have already begun against Brazil’s president. Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a bitter rival of Rousseff, introduced a petition to impeach the president earlier this month. The Supreme Court suspended the discussion temporarily while it reviews how Congress formed the commission to debate the measure.
This is while Brazilians are mostly angry about the country’s economic woes as Brazil is experiencing its worst economic recession in at least 25 years. Meanwhile, many of Rousseff’s allies are implicated in a corruption scandal at state-run oil firm Petrobras. Rousseff was chairwoman of the company from 2003 to 2010 and many argue that she could not have known about the corruption.
In Brasilia, protesters staged a mock funeral for Rousseff and burned dolls representing her mentor and predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The demonstrations were held by the same right-leaning groups that produced massive turnouts earlier this year to demand Rousseff’s impeachment when the process hadn’t started.
“Time has shown that Dilma is unable to govern. She’s thrown the country down a well,” said Adriano de Queiroz, a protester in Brasilia.
Brazil has also seen its highest rate of year-on-year inflation in 12 years at 10.48 percent for November while forecasts say its gross domestic product should shrink by 3.5 percent in 2015.
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