The teenage flag-bearer of Brazil's new Right, Kim Kataguiri, is marching on Brasilia as more conservative voices demand the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.
Kataguiri, a 19-year-old college drop out, is the face of the Free Brazil Movement (MBL), a growing force which seeks to harness some of the energy of the 2013 protest movement which brought more than a million onto the streets.
The past year has seen Rousseff re-elected to a second term -- but also the eruption of the biggest graft scandal Brazil has known.
An investigation has tainted dozens of business leaders but also establishment politicians accused of taking kickbacks on contracts involving oil giant Petrobras.
Kataguiri, the grandson of Japanese immigrants, is due to arrive in the capital on Wednesday after a 32-day 1,000-kilometer (650-mile) march from business hub Sao Paulo.
The climate of scandal, coupled with a sinking economy, saw some three million people take to Brazil's streets across March and April.
Now the MBL wants to push its case, with its young leader publishing a book ahead a news conference in Washington next month.
MBL activists have produced a manifesto calling for the state to be cut back, corruption to be eradicated and, not least, for Rousseff to be impeached.
Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was tortured under the 1964 to 1985 military dictatorship, became Brazil's first woman president in 2011.
But, as a former Petrobras board chair, her opponents have her in their sights after the graft scandal which erupted March last year.
She is not personally under investigation and denies knowledge of the kickbacks.
- Free market footsoldiers -
The MBL take their inspiration from the Austrian school of free market economics of the likes of Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek as they demand a smaller state.
With the economy sinking, the group senses a chance to push its agenda in a Brazil which the left has dominated since the end of the dictatorship.
"The idea of the march is to encourage people to go to Brasilia on May 27 when we shall give our final message to Congress and the presidency as that is the only place the leaders feel secure," Kataguiri told AFP.
Struggling to keep the red dust whipped up by passing lorries out of his eyes, Kataguiri seems less of an imposing figure than the one whose YouTube videos show him as a Samurai warrior challenging Rousseff's rule.
"This is the emergence of a new Right. The left's monopoly which it has had on Brazilian youth in universities for years is finished," the teen insists.
- Tea Party -
The essentially middle class movement admires the US Republican Party's "Tea Party" fringe and looks to shake up the political status quo.
This year's demonstrations have brought together often diverse groups united by little more than their desire to see an end to 12 years rule by Rousseff's Workers Party.
Some on the radical fringe say they would even like to see military rule return.
For movement supporter Paulo Moura, professor of political science at the University of Porto Alegre, the MBL has been decades in the making.
"Many of them are today leading the street movements against the traditional political system and never lived under a dictatorship," says Moura, a disillusioned former PT supporter.
The sudden rise to prominence of the movement has engendered doubt and controversy over who funds it.
Several media says they have uncovered links with US oil moguls Charles and David Koch, known for being close to the Republicans.
The MBL have denied such a link exists.
The teenage flag-bearer of Brazil’s new Right, Kim Kataguiri, is marching on Brasilia as more conservative voices demand the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.
Kataguiri, a 19-year-old college drop out, is the face of the Free Brazil Movement (MBL), a growing force which seeks to harness some of the energy of the 2013 protest movement which brought more than a million onto the streets.
The past year has seen Rousseff re-elected to a second term — but also the eruption of the biggest graft scandal Brazil has known.
An investigation has tainted dozens of business leaders but also establishment politicians accused of taking kickbacks on contracts involving oil giant Petrobras.
Kataguiri, the grandson of Japanese immigrants, is due to arrive in the capital on Wednesday after a 32-day 1,000-kilometer (650-mile) march from business hub Sao Paulo.
The climate of scandal, coupled with a sinking economy, saw some three million people take to Brazil’s streets across March and April.
Now the MBL wants to push its case, with its young leader publishing a book ahead a news conference in Washington next month.
MBL activists have produced a manifesto calling for the state to be cut back, corruption to be eradicated and, not least, for Rousseff to be impeached.
Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was tortured under the 1964 to 1985 military dictatorship, became Brazil’s first woman president in 2011.
But, as a former Petrobras board chair, her opponents have her in their sights after the graft scandal which erupted March last year.
She is not personally under investigation and denies knowledge of the kickbacks.
– Free market footsoldiers –
The MBL take their inspiration from the Austrian school of free market economics of the likes of Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek as they demand a smaller state.
With the economy sinking, the group senses a chance to push its agenda in a Brazil which the left has dominated since the end of the dictatorship.
“The idea of the march is to encourage people to go to Brasilia on May 27 when we shall give our final message to Congress and the presidency as that is the only place the leaders feel secure,” Kataguiri told AFP.
Struggling to keep the red dust whipped up by passing lorries out of his eyes, Kataguiri seems less of an imposing figure than the one whose YouTube videos show him as a Samurai warrior challenging Rousseff’s rule.
“This is the emergence of a new Right. The left’s monopoly which it has had on Brazilian youth in universities for years is finished,” the teen insists.
– Tea Party –
The essentially middle class movement admires the US Republican Party’s “Tea Party” fringe and looks to shake up the political status quo.
This year’s demonstrations have brought together often diverse groups united by little more than their desire to see an end to 12 years rule by Rousseff’s Workers Party.
Some on the radical fringe say they would even like to see military rule return.
For movement supporter Paulo Moura, professor of political science at the University of Porto Alegre, the MBL has been decades in the making.
“Many of them are today leading the street movements against the traditional political system and never lived under a dictatorship,” says Moura, a disillusioned former PT supporter.
The sudden rise to prominence of the movement has engendered doubt and controversy over who funds it.
Several media says they have uncovered links with US oil moguls Charles and David Koch, known for being close to the Republicans.
The MBL have denied such a link exists.
