Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in downtown Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo on Sunday protesting against the government of interim president Michel Temer, who is replacing suspended president Dilma Rousseff.
Pro-Rousseff demonstrators walked through major avenues shouting “Temer out” and rallied in Rio's main square. While in Sao Paulo, some asked for Rousseff to be permanently impeached.
“He [Temer] doesn’t work for the poor. I was only able to finish college under the Lula government and thanks to my hard work I have a postgraduate degree,” Patricia Abranches, a protester, told Folha de Sao Paulo.
Rousseff was suspended for allegedly violating fiscal laws in May. A Senate trial on permanently removing her is expected in late August.
Temer will open the Summer Games on 5 August. Rousseff's allies have promised protests for August 5, the same day of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.
"[The government of interim president Michel Temer] still is not the government elected by us, but we need to clean it up. He needs to clean up everything but has to start with himself. I'm not against Temer, I'm in favor of Brazil,” Marci Fionda, a protester, told the Associated Press.
Some said the protest against Rousseff is a way for the people to send a message to Brazil’s senate.
If 54 out of 81 senators voted against her, Rousseff will be permanently removed and interim president Temer could stay on the job until the end of her term in 2018.
"And the other message that we're sending is, to Congress as a whole, that we want laws approved that make it easier to put the corrupt in jail and not the opposite and that is what they are trying to do, which is to make it easier for the corrupt to escape from jail," Charles Putz, a protester, told AP.
Protests in Brazil were not only about who gets to keep the presidency until 2018.
On Wednesday, members of Amnesty International protested outside the Summer Games headquarters in Rio de Janeiro against the killings committed by the police around the time of big sporting events in the city.
According to organizers, police killed more than 40 people during May 2016 in the Olympic city alone.
With more than 85 thousand security force members in Rio, Amnesty International officials are worried that the violence and killings could increase.
“In the years that mega sportive events take place there is an important increase in the number of people killed by the police in the city of Rio and the state of Rio,” Renata Neder, Human Rights adviser for Amnesty International Brazil, said.
