Secession in Brazil: Brazilians 🇧🇷 in South asked to vote on secession

Voters in the south of Brazil were asked in an informal vote whether they want to be part of a new country.

The referendum was organised a week after a similar vote in Catalonia by a secessionist movement called "The South Is My Country". 

The movement said it set up polls in more than 1,000 municipalities across the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná. The group's leader, Celso Deucher, says he hopes to gather three million votes. 

At polling stations in the Paraná state capital, Curitiba, voters told local media they were disillusioned with the federal government and a giant corruption scandal that has seen dozens of politicians and members of the business elite jailed or indicted. 

Acacio Fernandes Tozzini told online newspaper, Redacaõ Bonde: "Our nation has reached a dramatic level of political disorder that is impossible to mend. We want to get rid of Brasilia, Brazil has reached the apex of corruption."

The poll is another indicator among Brazilian voters of anger towards the federal government which they say has failed to tackle a spike in violence across the country and has been unable to overturn the worse recession in more than a century.

UCJ, UNILORIN.