Major Nationwide Protests Add to Bolsonaro's Reform Headaches
- Students march in Brazil against education budget freeze
- In Dallas, Bolsonaro says protesters are ‘useful idiots’
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Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Brazil’s major cities on Wednesday to protest a freeze to the education budget, adding to the headwinds buffeting President Jair Bolsonaro’s legislative agenda.
Students and sympathizers rallied in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere against a decision to suspend about $420 million -- or nearly one quarter of the education ministry’s discretionary spending for federal universities -- from the 2019 budget. Speaking on a trip to Texas, the president described the demonstrators as “imbeciles” and “useful idiots”.