Brazil: Gov. regroups after huge protests against president

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called a meeting with her closest advisers and congressional leaders on Monday, a day after nationwide demonstrations urging her ouster brought millions of people into the streets.

With an estimated 3 million people thought to have taken part in more than 100 protests nationwide, Brazil's top newspapers hailed Sunday's events as the largest political demonstrations in the country's history and said they'd succeeded in further complicating Rousseff's already difficult situation. Rousseff is fighting impeachment proceedings in Congress amid the worst recession in decades and a sprawling corruption investigation that has closed in on key figures in her Workers' Party.

The Folha de S. Paulo daily said Sunday's anti-Rousseff demonstrations were larger than mass protests in 1984 demanding direct presidential elections amid the country's military dictatorship.

"Surprised by the strong turnout on Sunday, the government has been put on alert that it needs to act quickly" to avoid Rousseff's impeachment, a report in Folha said Monday.

Rousseff's meeting Monday morning in the Planalto presidential palace was considered a way to plot a way forward and secure the congressional support necessary to halt impeachment proceedings. Lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a Rousseff foe, is expected to form a commission to begin impeachment proceedings sometime this week.

Although she's seen her approval ratings dip into the single digits, Rousseff has categorically ruled out resigning, saying last week it was objectionable to demand the resignation of an elected president without concrete evidence the leader had violated the constitution.

The government is hoping that pro-government demonstrations scheduled for this Friday will help to shore up Rousseff's position.

Still, in a statement Monday, the U.S.-based Eurasia Group political and economic risk consulting firm put at 65 percent the probability that Rousseff will not serve out her term, which ends in 2018.

"We now think an impeachment vote will occur by May, and Rousseff will not survive it," the statement said.

The statement said Sunday's turnout was fanned by the "ballooning" Petrobras corruption probe and the "highly polarized environment" that followed the police action earlier this month that saw Rousseff's predecessor and mentor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, spirited to a Sao Paulo police station to answer questions in the Petrobras investigation.

Among other issues, federal investigators were trying to determine if Silva sold his influence in the current administration in exchange for speeches and donations to his nonprofit foundation Instituto Lula.

The more than 100-page transcript of Silva's questioning was released on Monday. In it, Silva denies having asked for money for his foundation from any of the construction companies ensnared in the Petrobras scandal but acknowledged that his aides may have made such requests.

Silva's legal woes grew last week when Sao Paulo state prosecutors filed charges and requested he be provisionally detained in a separate money laundering probe. A judge must sign off on the charges and the detention request, but it's not known when she may rule on the matter.

The Workers' Party meanwhile is pressing for Silva to accept a Cabinet post in Rousseff's government. Rousseff has said she would be "extremely proud" to have Silva, who supporters say could prove crucial to helping Rousseff remain afloat.

Critics suggest the offer is aimed at shielding the once-wildly popular former leader him from possible imprisonment on any charges. Under Brazilian law, only the Supreme Court can authorize the investigation, imprisonment and trial of Cabinet members.

Silva has repeatedly insisted he has not committed any wrongdoing and suggests the probes are part of a political smear campaign against him.

Sunday's demonstrations, overwhelmingly comprised of the white, older middle-class people who have railed against Rousseff for years, may have weakened the government but they don't seem to have strengthened the opposition. The crowd in Sao Paulo, where the respected Datafolha polling agency estimated turnout at half a million people, booed opposition politician Aecio Neves, who narrowly lost to Rousseff in the 2014 presidential run-off.

While many earlier braced for violence during Sunday's protests, no major incidents were reported. In a statement late Sunday, the government highlighted "the peaceful character" of the demonstrations, saying they underscored "the maturity of a country that knows how to co-exist with different opinions and knows how to secure respect to its laws and institutions."