Daily US Times: Thousands of people have protested in towns and cities across Brazil to protest against president Jair Bolsonaro.

The protests were organised by trade unions and opposition parties and fall exactly one year ahead of the country’s elections.

Jair Bolsonaro is currently falling behind in opinion polls.

Many Brazilians are upset at his handling of the coronavirus pandemic – more than 600,000 people have died.

Demonstrations took place in more than 160 cities and towns on Saturday.

Images show protesters carrying placards, posters and signs, calling for Mr Bolsonaro’s removal.

Protester Valdo Oliveira told AFP news agency: “This president who is there represents everything that is backward in the world – there is hunger, poverty, corruption and we are here to defend democracy.”

There have been more than 100 requests filed with the Chamber of Deputies to impeach the Brazilian president.

The supreme court of the country recently approved several investigations into Mr Bolsonaro.

Saturday’s protests come after a number of rallies in support of the president last month. They were seen as an attempt to showcase that he can still draw huge crowds of supporters after recent polls had him trailing his left-wing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by nine percentage points.

The elections aren’t due to be held until next October but the president’s approval ratings have dropped to an all-time low.

A poll by the Atlas Institute suggested that 61% of Brazilians described his Bolsonaro government’s performance as bad or very bad, up from 23% when he first took office in January 2019.

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