Rio kicks off Carnival parade with anti-establishment tone
RIO DE JANEIRO — There are some Brazilians who aren’t likely finding much to enjoy in Rio de Janeiro’s colorful Carnival parades
— the mayor, the governor and the president.
An anti-establishment tone is echoing through this year’s celebrations in Brazil. And Sunday night’s parade at Rio’s Sambadrome featured entries that blast the country’s political leadership at a moment of economic slump and political scandal.
President Michel Temer, Rio de Janeiro state Gov. Luiz Fernando Pezao and Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella were expected to skip the two-day bash at the Sambadrome. The samba parades used to be a magnet for politicians before a sprawling corruption investigation around state-run oil giant Petrobras began in 2014. Now officeholders fear being booed and even attacked by critics during the party.
Temer, whose popularity is in single digits, spent his last Carnival as president with a group of 40 people on a military-guarded beach south of Rio. Earlier a few hundred revelers in the capital of Brasilia organized a street party to make fun of his recent poor health and his unpopular pension overhaul.
In the Sambadrome or at street parties, Carnival revelers usually take the five-day extravaganza to forget everyday problems, and most of them will do just that. But the political message is clearly more present this time than in recent years.
“This has been the most political bash since the middle of the ‘80s when Brazil’s military dictatorship was about to end,” Carnival historian Luiz Antonio Simas said.