Factions backing president and her predecessor to put on show of strength in face of mass protests and moves towards impeachment

At the end of a week of extraordinary political drama, constitutional chaos and massive anti-government protests, supporters of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will rally in cities across the country on Friday.



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The Frente Brasil Popular, a network of trade unions, social movements and other organisations sympathetic to the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) said it would hold events in 45 cities in defence of democracy and the rights of the working class.

It will mark the first major show of strength by Brazil’s pro-government factions since an estimated 3 million people took to the streets on Sunday to demand the president’s resignation.

On Thursday Brazil’s congress elected the 65 members of a special commission that will examine the case to impeach Rousseff, who is accused of using illegal accounting manoeuvres to balance the government’s books.

In the evening, as legislators voted for the leaders of the committee, thousands of protesters gathered once more on the huge grassy lawn outside congress chanting “resign, resign” as a cordon of riot police prevented them from approaching the building.

Most political analysts believe the committee itself is fairly evenly split between pro- and anti-Rousseff members, though its president is a close ally of the house speaker, Eduardo Cunha, who initiated the impeachment proceedings.

“Whether the committee leans for or against Dilma will depend very much on what happens on the streets,” said Lucas de Aragão, a partner at the political risk and public affairs consultancy Arko Advice. “The committee’s backbone is made up of seven or eight parties which are extremely non-ideological. These guys have no shame in changing sides.”

One of the committee members who will sit in judgment on Rousseff is Paulo Maluf, recently sentenced in absentia to three years’ jail for money-laundering by a court in France. Around 26% of congress face active criminal proceedings.

After Rousseff presents her defence, the committee will make a recommendation to the congress, but whatever it decides, the vote to impeach will go to the floor as a whole. If two-thirds approve, it then moves on to the senate, where it requires only a simply majority to pass. Should that happen, Rousseff will be suspended from the presidency while the supreme court decides her fate.

“The government has lost control over the variables that keep a country running: the politics, the economy, the streets,” Aragão said.

What happens in the streets is likely to be determined by further revelations from Operation Lava-jato, the investigation into Brazil’s worst-ever corruption scandal, centred around the state-run oil company, Petrobras.

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Both Lula and Rousseff have been implicated to varying degrees in the investigation or its offshoots, as have senior coalition allies and Aécio Neves, the leader of the main opposition.

Rousseff’s decision to appoint Lula to her cabinet this week prompted widespread outrage among the opposition, which believes the move is designed to shield the former president from prosecution. The controversial release by the investigative judge of secretly recorded phone calls between the two – interpreted by the opposition and the Brazilian media as confirmation of this ploy – only fuelled the fury of anti-government protesters.

In tense scenes outside the presidential palace on Thursday, government supporters and opposition activists were barely kept apart by police as they hurled insults and threats at each other.

Shortly after the ceremony, the anti-government faction rejoiced at news that a federal judge had suspended Lula’s appointment. But it subsequently transpired the judge is an opposition activist, and the government appears confident that the supreme court will overrule the injunction.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators gather to protest against the government of Brazil at the congress building in Brasília. Photograph: Fernando Bizerra Jr./EPA

For Regina Silva, a car saleswoman who attended her first anti-government protest on Thursday night in Brasília, the details of the latest developments were overshadowed by her anger at the idea of government ministers becoming rich while the economy nosedived.

“This is the worst government I have ever known. This is the toughest time I have ever seen. I see people who used to be in a strong financial situation and now they are practically begging for bread.”