By Manuel Pérez Bella for EFE

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is facing her most difficult moment yet in a long and storied political career: she now stands suspended from office, alone, surrounded by hostile forces and retaining scarce support from her once-loyal social base.

The constant erosion suffered by her party’s congressmembers has been reflected by a sharp decline in popular demonstrations backing her on the street.

A hodgepodge of unions, student groups and farming associations _ the core of the progressive wave that swept Rousseff’s political godfather Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to power in 2003 _ remains the only block willing to defend their president from what they term a “coup d’etat.”

However, these activists have been forced to change their venues and methods, trading massive street protests for the smaller spaces offered by theaters and auditoriums with limited seating.

Despite the drop in numbers, members of different social movements are expected to accompany Rousseff on her arrival to the Senate for her impeachment hearing on Monday.

Various acts of support throughout the country have also been planned, although organizers admit they expect attendances to be far from multitudinous.

Guilherme Boulos, leader of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST), told EFE that the low levels of popular mobilization are in part due to the “brutal media attacks” designed to “legitimize the putschist process.”

“This has anesthetized a large segment of the Brazilian population, who did not understand what’s at stake: the loss of our rights,” the activist added.

Boulos also blamed Rousseff’s budget-cutting austerity measures, implemented at the start of her second term, as responsible for an “evident” estrangement between social movements and her Workers’ Party (PT).

Top members of the PT have themselves admitted the error of their ways in a recent open letter, claiming that Rousseff made a mistake by distancing herself from “progressive forces” and “partially accepting the agenda of big business.”

Social advocates did take to the streets in March when Lula, an icon of the Brazilian Left, was arrested on corruption charges, an event that led to a full-blown political crisis that is still unraveling in the form of Rousseff’s ongoing impeachment trial.

Protests raged on until the crucial vote in the Chamber of Deputies _ Brazil’s lower house _ that resulted in Rousseff’s temporary suspension from the presidential office.

After the vote, tensions simmered as a feeling of inevitability crept over many Brazilians, who by now have largely accepted Dilma’s impeachment as all but a certainty.

On May 12, the day Rousseff’s suspension officially kicked in, most streets in the country were empty.

In the past few weeks, popular demonstrations of support have been virtually non-existent, in part due to the long shadow cast by this year’s Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro.

An attempt to call a general strike on June 10 against Vice-President and now Interim President Michel Temer faltered, when, out of the country’s 34 main cities, only the marches in Sao Paulo saw any meaningful participation.

João Pedro Stédile, leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), Brazil’s largest farm workers’ union, recently admitted that social movements had been “unable to motivate” workers to take part in street protests, despite the new government promising cuts in social spending.

The activists’ main hope is that, once Rousseff’s impeachment is confirmed, Temer will roll out these “unpopular measures” without hindrance, which could lead to a “re-awakening of the People” and jump-start a “period of instability and social conflict,” Boulos told EFE.

“It is hard for people to defend their own governments, but they mobilize once their rights are at stake,” he said.

“If Temer enacts the reforms he’s preparing, which would make Dilma’s reforms look like child’s play, a widespread popular reaction is to be expected,” Boulos added.