Via The New York Times: As Coronavirus Toll Grows, Brazil’s Political Divisions Spill Onto the Streets. Excerpt:
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — For weeks, President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters have made their presence felt with the roar of motorcycles during boisterous rallies meant to show steadfast fealty to an increasingly unpopular leader.
Until recently, the president’s opponents had refrained from convening street protests, opting instead to show their exasperation by banging pots and pans from windows and trading memes online.
But over the weekend, thousands of Brazilians critical of Mr. Bolsonaro took to the streets in the largest public mobilization against the president since the beginning of the pandemic.
Their show of force in cities across the country followed a series of damning revelations in congressional hearings examining the government’s catastrophic response to the coronavirus, which has killed more than 461,000 Brazilians.
Mariana Filgueiras, a professor at the school of communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said she decided to participate in anti-government protests to help put a face on the rising opposition. A recent public opinion poll, by Datafolha, found that Mr. Bolsonaro’s support slipped to 24 percent in May from 30 percent in March.
“We need to show that for every thousand people on motorcycles who are in favor of the government, there are thousands of people walking peacefully in the streets against it,” Ms. Filgueiras said. “The government is more dangerous than the virus.”
The recent street demonstrations, which have been largely orderly, are a far cry from the huge protests that shook Brazil in 2013 and 2015, fueling the successful effort to impeach President Dilma Rousseff in 2016.
But political analysts said they could signal a new phase of political instability as a deeply polarized electorate starts gearing up for next year’s presidential election.
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