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Brazil presidential election: economy dominates as voters go to polls Dilma Rousseff on course for first-round lead in Brazil election
(about 3 hours later)
Millions of Brazilians go to the polls on Sunday after a presidential election dominated by the variable economic record of the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, who is seeking a second term. Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff was on course to secure a comfortable first-round lead in her bid for re-election on Sunday, but opinion surveys suggested the fight for second place – and a chance to contend a runoff – was too close to call.
Opinion polls predict Rousseff will win but will fail to avoid a second-round runoff in three weeks. Her nearest challengers are the former environment minister Marina Silva and Aecio Neves, a former governor. As the nation’s 143 million voters went to the polls, the front pages of almost every newspaper reported that the former environment minister Marina Silva, who was the frontrunner at one stage, had fallen into third place with 24% behind the pro-business Social Democratic party candidate Aécio Neves with 27%.
The campaign has been all about the economy, which has sputtered in recent years under Rousseff. The current president has sought to emphasise her party’s efforts to reduce inequality, and can also point to other indicators that have improved on her watch: the jobless rate is close to a record low at 5%, the minimum wage is up more than 50% in the past five years and tens of millions of people have risen out of poverty since the Workers’ party came to power in 2003. The bolsa familia poverty relief payments have been extended to 13.8 million families, covering almost a quarter of the population and making them a powerful political weapon. While the gap between the two is within the margin of error, the surprisingly steep decline of Silva’s vote in recent weeks underscores the volatility of public opinion during one of the most dramatic campaigns in recent memory.
Her support is strongest among the lowest income groups and in the north-east, which has been Brazil’s poorest region for much of the last century but has enjoyed robust growth in the past decade. In a possible further twist, Rousseff – the Workers party candidate who was in second place with 34% a month ago – has bounced back to within touching distance of an outright first-round victory with her 46% support rate on the eve of the poll, just four points off the needed overall majority.
Silva, by contrast, has tapped into middle-class frustrations with corruption and a sluggish economy that has crawled for the past two years and slipped into recession last month (partly because there were so many public holidays during the World Cup). With more TV time and campaign funds, the centre-left Workers party and centre-right Social Democratic party have focused their attacks on Silva, who has promised to break the decades-old stranglehold of the two main parties with a focus on sustainable development.
She has promised to break with the left-right politics of the past by maintaining the social policies and poverty relief payments of the Workers’ party, while adopting pro-business economic measures usually associated with the centre-right Social Democrats. She would give greater autonomy to the central bank and shift the focus of trade relations to the US, instead of regional blocks and other emerging Brics economies. If she wins, she is widely expected to co-opt many members of the Neves camp into her team. Early in the campaign, Silva benefited from outsider status and sympathy after the death of her running mate Eduardo Campos in a plane crash. But as the vote has approached, the debate has become less about emotions, change and personality and more about traditional left-right economic policies. Dilma has solid backing from benefactors of the Bolsa Família poverty relief programme, which covers more than a fifth of voters, and Aécio is the first choice of business.
“It really is too close to call,” political analyst Rafael Cortez told Reuters. “Volatility and frustration favour opposition candidates, but you don’t really have a crisis to topple the government, either.” At the polling station in the Colegio Angelorum school in Gloria, Rio de Janeiro, several voters acknowledged that their opinions have shifted away from Silva in recent weeks.
“I was going to vote for Marina, but she was terrible in the debates. She looked very confused,” said Aline Blajchman, a community care worker who said she would support the Green candidate Eduardo Jorge.
Of the dozen or so people approached by the Guardian, a majority said they would vote for Aécio, who has benefited from a strong performance in TV debates and the country’s biggest campaign machine.
“He is the most capable and knowledgeable of the three candidates – the safest pair of hands,” said Silvana Cutrim, a shopkeeper. “Dilma is just an agitator and Marina is too unreliable.”
Others expressed dissatisfaction with all three of the leading candidates, but – with voting obligatory under Brazilian law – said they would opt for continuity.
“I will vote for Dilma. She’s bad, but the others are worse,” said Jaime Souza, a vegetable stall holder.
The election is one of the world’s great exercises in democracy with 450,000 polling stations ranging from the Atlantic seaboard to deep inside the Amazon rainforest.
As well as choosing from the 11 presidential candidates, voters must select 27 state governors, 513 congressmen, 1,069 regional lawmakers and a third of the senate.
With voting done by machine, the results are expected within a few hours of the close of the polls. If needed, a second round will take place on 26 October.