Black Protest

Fernando Collor de Mello won the Brazilian presidency in 1989 by reaching out to the descamisados, the country's shirtless poor. Now Brazilians by the thousands are putting on shirts -- black ones -- to demonstrate their disgust with a Collor regime that is haunted by scandal and economic failure. An inflation rate of 20% a month and record unemployment had already eroded support for the once popular Collor even before congressional investigators recently uncovered a kickback and bid-rigging racket engineered by top presidential aides. The embattled President made the mistake of asking followers to dress in green and yellow, the national colors, to show support. Instead, thousands of demonstrators draped themselves in black and paraded through major cities chanting, "Collor out!" The demonstrations persuaded many politicians to bail out of the Collor camp and join growing support for an impeachment motion that will be put forward to Congress perhaps as soon as this week.

The most troubling question now is who, or what, will follow Collor. So far the Brazilian military has shown no desire to retake the power it held for 21 years before 1985. But Brazil's democracy is still such a fragile structure that a long and painful impeachment process could do irreparable harm. More and more Brazilians are convinced that the best solution is for Collor to resign. But that, Collor has said several times, he will never do.