Rio Hosts a Free Show in Copacabana Calling for Direct Elections

By Beatriz Miranda, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Sunday (May 28th), from 11AM, a free concert is set to happen on Copacabana Beach, aimed at calling for President Temer’s exit and direct presidential elections. Caetano Veloso, Mano Brown, Criolo, among other artists will perform on a stage located in front of Rua Siqueira Campos.

The show is called “O Rio pelas Diretas Já” (Rio for Direct Elections), and is organized by Frente Povo Sem Medo (People’s Front Without Fear) and Frente Brasil Popular (Popular Brasil Front), and the event is part of a national movement that has been demonstrating for direct presidential elections since President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment.

“I do not believe in this election system we have, I do not think it will lead to actual transformations,” admits Raphael Santana, age thirty, a tour guide and geographer who plans to attend Sunday’s show with his French fiancee. “Still, I think any call for our rights is legitimate. And there is some impact when famous artists, like Criolo and Caetano, speak up in such an important moment.”

Cordão da Bola Preta, a traditional Carnival bloco, is the first group to go up on the stage, at 1PM. Afterwards, Pretinho da Serrinha, Teresa Cristina, Mosquito, Otto and Mart’nália will run a samba and Brazilian Popular Music show at 2PM.

Caetano Veloso, Criolo, Mano Brown, Maria Gadu and Pedro Luís will bring rap and MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) to the stage at 4PM. Closing the show, Digital Dubs and rapper BNegão will perform at 5:30 PM.

For Vic Scorza, 31 year-old Uruguayan actress who has lived in Rio for five years, “the movement for the support of democracy transcends every ideology and boundary, this is why I am going. Brazilians cannot let their parliament, which has over two hundred people being investigated by Operação Lava-Jato, choose the new president.”

The event and the current Diretas Já national movement alludes to the movement organized in 1984, in the immediate post-dictatorship period, when over one million people went to the streets in São Paulo, on April 16th of that year.

What: O Rio pelas Diretas Já
When: 11AM to 10PM on Sunday, May 28th
Where: Copacabana Beach, in front of Rua Siqueira Campos
Entrance: FREE