BRAZIL, 30 May 2021, (TON): Tens of thousands of protesters have poured on to the streets of Brazil’s largest cities to demand the impeachment of President Jair Bolsonaro over his catastrophic response to a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed nearly half a million Brazilian lives.

The demonstrators turned out in more than 200 cities and towns for what is the biggest anti-Bolsonaro mobilisation since Brazil’s Covid outbreak began

“Today is a decisive milestone in the battle to defeat Bolsonaro’s genocidal administration,” said Silvia de Mendonça, 55, a civil rights activist from Brazil’s Unified Black Movement as she led a column of protesters through Rio’s dilapidated city centre.

Saturday’s demonstrations – which also took place in major cities including São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Recife and the capital Brasília, as well as scores of smaller towns – come with Bolsonaro at arguably his lowest ebb since he took office in January 2019.

Polls suggest growing anger at the rightwing populist’s handling of Covid, with 57% of the population now backing his impeachment. A congressional inquiry is currently dissecting Bolsonaro’s calamitous response to the public health crisis with damaging revelations about his government’s conduct being broadcast each night on the news.

Bolsonaro appears particularly rattled by the reemergence of his political rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former leftist president who looks poised to challenge him for the presidency in next year’s election. In a recent interview with the Guardian Lula, whose political rights were recently restored, said he had no doubt the Brazilian people would “free themselves” from Bolsonaro in 2022.