RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets for a second Sunday to call for the removal of President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under fire for his government’s dealings with COVID-19, which raged across the country and claimed more than 216,000 lives.
Horned cars paraded the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and a dozen or more other cities while other protesters marched on foot, some shouting, “Get out of Bolsonaro!”
Sunday’s protests were called by conservative groups that had once backed the president, while those on Saturday came from the left.
“When Bolsonaro arrived, we voted for his proposals which we found interesting, but the situation now with the pandemic is dire,” said Meg Fernandes, a 66-year-old engineer who attended a protest in Rio on Sunday.
She said she was especially alarmed by the situation in the northern city of Manaus, where there is a waiting list for intensive care hospital beds and a shortage of medical oxygen.
“I was disappointed last year, but now with the situation in Manaus, I think (this government) should stop,” she said. “Hello, Bolsonaro.”
Thomaz Favaro, a political analyst at the consulting firm Control Risks, said Bolsonaro faces little risk of impeachment, although that could change if his allies lose a Feb. 2 vote to lower house leadership.
“Bolsonaro’s base in Congress is unstable, but it is robust,” he said, although it could be affected by the president’s declining popularity.
But he said impeachment would be “a nuclear option that changes the country’s political trajectory.”
Bolsonaro – who is halfway through his four-year tenure – has faced renewed criticism in recent weeks of both the Manaus crisis and delays in starting Brazil’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The president has long opposed lockdown measures against the novel coronavirus, arguing that economic damage would be worse than the disease.
Brazil’s prosecutor general Augusto Aras asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to investigate Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello over the crisis in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state. Aras quoted a document stating that the ministry was aware of a possible oxygen shortage on Jan. 8, but did not begin shipping additional supplies until Jan. 12.
A recently released Jan. 20-21 Datafolha survey showed support for Bolsonaro fell from 31% to 37% in December, the largest one-month drop since the start of his administration. The number who described their performance as poor increased from 32% to 40%. The margin of error was two percentage points.
“We are asking for Bolsonaro to be impeached because it is not just a crime he committed. The way he handled the pandemic – He spent money on ineffective remedies instead of investing in the vaccine and oxygen, ”said Tiago Sussekind, a 21-year-old law student who attended Saturday’s rally in Rio.
The weekend’s demonstrations come as calls to impeach Bolsonaro are on the rise, although most analysts believe it is unlikely.
Carlos Ayres Britto, former president of the Brazilian court, former presidential candidate Ciro Gomes and even singer Chico Buarque have called for the president’s impeachment over his reaction to the pandemic. A leading newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, also published an editorial on Friday calling for impeachment.
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AP Video journalist Diarlei Rodrigues contributed to this report.