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Brazil’s “Camp for Democracy” entered in sixth day on Sunday in the capital city Brasilia to protest the impeachment attempt against President Dilma Rousseff, while hundreds of thousands more pro-democracy and anti-government demonstrators took to the streets as the lower house of Congress launched vote on the impeachment process.
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"The people are standing up and saying 'there will be no coup'," Adi Spezia of Brasilia's chapter of the Brazil Popular Front told teleSUR Sunday morning. "The people are in the streets."
According to Spezia, some 20,000 people were gathered in the Camp for Democracy as of Sunday morning, with some 200,000 expected to join pro-democracy demonstrations in Brasilia alone. "People are rising up in defense of democracy," she added. "In every capital, in every state."
Nationally, massive rival demonstrations under the banner of defending democracy and supporting the impeachment are planned as lawmakers in the lower house continue to debate the impeachment process with a vote planned to continue into the evening.
According to the “Map of Democracy” organized by groups against the impeachment attempt, 332 lawmakers plan to vote in favor of moving the process forward while 168 have committed to vote against it and 12 remain undecided. Rousseff’s supporters need 172 votes to block the impeachment.
Anti-government protesters outside Congress in Brasilia claim that there are 352 lawmakers planning to vote in favor the impeach process, clearing the threshold of 342 votes needed to pass the decision along to the senate.
Anticipating large tens of thousands-strong protests from both sides of the political divide on Sunday, police set up a half-mile long (1 km) in front of Congress to avoid clashes. The wall is a clear visual symbol of the rift in Brazilian society over the impeachment attempt, interpreted by many as an assault on the country’s still fragile democracy.
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"Brazil is living a very delicate moment," said Spezia. "Our democracy is very young, but a right-wing aggressive is trying to rise up against this, trying to take out the Workers Party and end our democracy ... People are taking to the streets today in defense of democracy."
Thousands of police were deployed in Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo where massive marches are expected ahead of the start of the voting process in the lower house at 2:00 p.m. local time in Brasilia.
Spezia said that "police abuse is very intense" in areas controlled by the right wing and that there is broader right-wing violence seen in a recent series of assassinations.
While government opponents have championed the impeachment process as a campaign against corruption, Rousseff is not accused of financial impropriety or personal enrichment, unlike house speaker Eduardo Cunha who is leading the impeachment attempt. Cunha is embroiled in massive corruption over receiving millions of dollars in bribes as part of the Petrobras scandal.
Of the 594 members of Congress who will vote on the impeachment process on Sunday, 318 are facing charges or are under investigation for corruption.
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