Massive protests calling for the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff have narrowed her options to fend off political and economic crises and will mean more turbulence for the nation in the months to come, but her ouster remains highly unlikely, analysts said today.
Polls showed the Rousseff government's popularity had already been cut in half before Sunday's protests, compared to when she won re-election in October, and the sheer size of the challenge facing her was splashed across front pages of newspapers today with photos of the surprisingly huge crowds seeking her removal.
Anger over a sprawling corruption scheme sparked Sunday's marches in more than 150 cities.
Federal prosecutors say they've uncovered Brazil's biggest graft case yet in a kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras, with at least USD 800 million paid by construction and engineering firms in bribes to politically appointed former executives at the oil company, all in exchange for winning inflated contracts.
Investigators say some of the money was funneled back to the campaign coffers of the Workers' Party and its allies.
Dozens of congressmen and some former executive branch officials, including two former chiefs of staff to Rousseff, are under investigation. The president, who served as chairwoman of Petrobras' board during several years as the graft took place, isn't implicated, but polls show a large majority of Brazilians think she knew about the pilfering.
Some 210,000 people gathered on a main Sao Paulo avenue Sunday, a crowd larger than any seen during daily anti-government rallies in June 2013, when anger was less focused on Rousseff herself than on public anger over poor public services and perceived endemic political corruption in general.
Protests now are expected to be less frequent. The right-leaning groups who organized Sunday's events on social media have called for a new round on April 12.
Despite the anger expressed in the streets, few analysts expect Rousseff's departure.
"While the next few months will be very difficult, we still don't think the government is headed to a governability crisis or that Rousseff is likely to be impeached," the Eurasia Group political risk consulting firm wrote in a note.
