Nationwide demonstrations calling for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff have swept Brazil for the second day in less than a month.
Turnout at the latest protests appeared down, however, prompting questions about the future of the movement.
A poll published over the weekend suggested the majority of Brazilians supported opening impeachment proceedings against Ms Rousseff, whose second term in office has been buffeted by a corruption scandal at the nation's largest company, oil giant Petrobras, as well as a stalled economy, a sliding currency and political infighting.
Only 13 per cent of survey respondents evaluated her administration positively.
The protests, in cities from Belem, in the northern Amazonian rainforest region, to Curitiba in the south, were organised mostly via social media by an assortment of groups. Most were calling for Ms Rousseff's impeachment, but other demands ranged from urging looser gun control laws to a military coup.
In Rio, several thousand people marched along the golden sands of Copacabana beach, many dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag. The March 15 protest, by contrast, drew tens of thousands.
In the opposition stronghold of Sao Paulo, about 100,000 people marched on the city's main thoroughfare, according to an estimate by the respected Datafolha polling agency.
Antonio Guglielmi, a 61-year-old sales representative for a building materials company, said: "I will keep coming back to demonstrations like this one - big or small - because it is the best way for us to make our voices heard and demand an end to the Dilma government. The country cannot go on like this."
Much of the protesters' ire focused on the Petrobras scandal. Prosecutors say at least £550 million was paid in bribes and other funds by construction and engineering firms in exchange for inflated Petrobras contracts.
Ms Rousseff, a former chairwoman of Petrobras' board, has not been implicated and so far is not being investigated, though two of her former chiefs of staff are among the dozens of officials caught up in the inquiry.
One president, Fernando Collor de Mello, has been impeached since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985, but many legal experts have said that Ms Rousseff could be impeached only if evidence emerged directly linking her to crimes committed during her second term, which began in January.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article