SAO PAULO
More than three-quarters of protesters at Sunday's mass anti-government demonstration in central São Paulo supported calls for impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, according to a poll released Monday.
The independent Datafolha polling institute said 77 percent of the 100,000 protesters on the city's central boulevard were in favor of the president's ouster.
The number of protesters at Sunday's nationwide events is hotly disputed. Police estimate 275,000 demonstrators paticipated at its peak, while organizers put the figure at 800,000.
Nationwide, police put the figure at 700,000; organizers said 1.5 million marchers had taken to Brazil's streets.
The pollsters, however, who surveyed 1,320 protestors throughout the demonstratons, said fewer than half of those believed Rousseff would eventually be ousted.
Only 13 percent of protesters said they had come specifically to call for the president's impeachment. The biggest single reason for their coming to the anti-government demonstration, according to 33 percent of respondents, was corruption. Ten percent had come to protests against Rousseff's Workers' Party, or PT.
Datafolha said the number of protesters on Sunday were half the amount who turned out March 15, when the institute calculated 210,000 marchers had filled Avenida Paulista.
An Anadolu Agency correspondent at the protest said the vast majority of participants were middle class and white, with many holding banners accusing the president, her predecessor Luiz Inácio lula da Silva and their party of corruption and being responsible for the ongoing cooling-down of the country's economy.
He added that a small minority were calling for the president's ruling coalition to be removed by force, backing a "constitutional military intervention."
Government corruption has barely left headlines in Brazil after the country's highest court approved the investigation of 47 active or former politicians -- all but one from the president's ruling coalition -- for their alleged involvement in a vast kickback scheme at state-run oil giant Petrobras.
Rousseff has denied knowledge of the scheme that prosecutors say took place largely during the period that she chaired the Petrobras board of directors.
Despite being quoted by witnesses, the Supreme Court concluded there was insufficient proof to require an investigation into the president.
