Tens of demonstrators took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and dozens of other cities around Brazil to protest President Jair Bolsonaro and call for his impeachment over his government’s handling of the pandemic, with the country’s presidential election still a year away.

The protests, although smaller than those in support of Bolsonaro last September 7, targeted the president for his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March last year, Bolsonaro was famously quoted saying, “In my understanding, the destructive power of this virus is overestimated. Maybe it’s even being promoted for economic reasons,” while talking about the pandemic.

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Since then he has undermined the usage of vaccination and isn’t often spotted with a mask in public. Some 597,000 have died of COVID-19 in Brazil, a country of 212 million people.

Meanwhile, demonstrators also protested surging inflation in mainstays like food and electricity.

Earlier in June, Bolsonaro came under pressure from allegations that federal officials solicited bribes to fast-track and overpay for the Indian Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin vaccine.

However, Bolsonaro had said Brazil never paid for or received any doses of a coronavirus vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech, denouncing all allegations.   

In late June, Brazil’s Health Ministry suspended the 1.6 billion real ($304 million) procurement deal. 

“It is very painful to see that health and education are being destroyed, and there are many starving people in the country,” Marilena Magnano, a 75-year-old retiree, told The Associated Press. “We need Bolsonaro out of the government, his time has passed.”

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The president’s approval ratings have steadily declined throughout the year, but he remains far more popular than prior presidents who were impeached – most recently Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party in 2016.

Over 130 impeachment requests have been filed since the start of Bolsonaro’s administration, but the lower house’s speaker, Arthur Lira, and his predecessor have declined to open proceedings. Division among the opposition is the key reason analysts consider it unlikely there will be enough pressure on Lira to open the impeachment process.

Meanwhile, the protests were promoted by leftist parties and some union movements linked to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Worker´s Party. Da Silva is widely expected to run against Bolsonaro in Brazil’s October 2, 2022 presidential election, according to Associated Press reports.

With inputs from the Associated Press