Rio de Janeiro: Brazil braced for more mass protests, a day after a poll showed most people back demands for improvements to crumbling public services and for wide-ranging institutional reform.
Under normal circumstances, Brazilians would be celebrating their football team reaching the semifinals of the Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup, which the country has not hosted since 1950.
Most protesters are not convinced by a pledge from President Dilma Rousseff to improve shoddy public services and fight harder against rampant corruption — the main grudges of the street protesters.
A poll by the Ibope polling agency showed three quarters of Brazilians back the wave of protests, with 77 percent citing the high cost of using public transport as the key reason for their dissatisfaction.
But two-thirds were overall in favour of hosting the World Cup, despite anger at the billions of dollars the event’s preparation and hosting will cost — money many feel could be better spent on education, transport and housing.
Almost two weeks into the unrest, while most of the protests have been peaceful there is a militant edge as hard liners grow impatient for change. Sao Paulo’s ‘free transport’ movement urged “large scale action” for the week ahead while numerous users of social media posted a clear message — “On July 1, 2013, Brazil will grind to a halt” — as they clamoured for strike action via Twitter and Facebook. AFP
