Brazil elections: turning left or right?

In the recent elections in Brazil, President Dilma Rouseff seemed to be the winner. She got 41.59% of votes while her rivals Aecio Neves got 33.55 % and Marina Silva 21.32%.[1] According to Brazilian electoral law if the leading candidate does not get 50%, there has to be a second round of elections between the top two candidates. So, Dilma and Neves will fight in the second round to be held on 26 October.[2]

The results are somewhat close to the opinion polls held last week, although Neves got more than what was predicted. Till just a week ago, Neves – a business-oriented, two-term successful governor of Minas Gerais, the second-most populous state in Brazil-was trailing in the third position, and overtook Silva only in the past days. In early September, Marina Silva was a favourite, predicted to win in the second round with her double digit lead over Rouseff. Silva has now endorsed Neves in the October 26 run-off. Last month’s aggressive negative campaign by the Rouseff machinery which exposed the contradiction between the pro-big business approach of Silva and her claim to be on the side of the poor people, successfully discredited Silva. The personal attacks, especially those made by the popular previous president Luiz Inacio de Lula, hurt Silva severely. She was seen as having compromised her idealism and environmental activism in exchange for the votes of business and religious groups. On her part, Silva failed to defend or clarify her positions effectively and paid the price. Notable is the fact that before the sudden surge of Silva last month, Rouseff was comfortably leading her rivals and was expected to be re-elected.

President Rouseff is satisfied with the centre-right Neves as her opponent rather than Silva who would have encroached on her vote bank of the poor. Now it is a clear fight between the business-friendly Neves and Rouseff who will claim to represent the masses. Recognising the fact that about 60% of the electorate had voted against her, Dilma told the local media that she will be better in her second term, having understood the message from voters. She will almost certainly scare the poor with messages that imply that Neves might scrap the popular pro-poor programmes like Bolsa Familia. Rouseff is supported by the fact that her Workers Party candidate is the governor of Minas Gerais, the home state of  Neves, having beaten the candidate of Neves’ Social Democratic Party. But she should be worried that Neves won more votes than her in her home state of Rio Grande do Sul as well as in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the suburb of Sao Paulo where Lula lives and the Workers Party was founded.

Not so great for Rouseff is the poor performance of Brazil’s economy. Her unpopular interventionist policies to control the economy, annoyed and antagonized business in contrast to her predecessor Lula who had regularly consulted business and let them flourish. In addition were the corruption scandals within her partywhich have seriously – some party leaders are in jail -tainted the image of her Workers Party.

Neves on his part, now has been delivered a boost of confidence by the fact that he got just 8% fewer votes than did President Dilma Rouseff. To succeed in the polls, he will have to work hard to convince the beneficiaries of Rouseff’s poverty alleviation programmes that he will also care for them. Although Marina Silva has not openly announced her endorsement of any candidate, she seemed inclined towards Aecio when she saidright after the results “Brazil clearly showed it does not agree with what is out there “. [3] Neves himself is a strong candidate given his strong performance as governor of Minas Gerais: He remitted office in 2010 with an over 90% approval rating. He is also pedigreed: Neves is the grandson of Tancredo Neves who was selected as Brazil’s first post-dictatorship civilian president in 1985 but died before taking the office. His Social Democratic Party, which ruled Brazil before Rouseff’s Workers Party came to Brasila in 2002, has a solid national network and campaign machinery.

As of now, President Rouseff is expected to win the 26 October second round. But Brazilian voters can easily change their minds in the next three weeks. If she is re-elected she will continue her low-key approach to foreign policy and to partnership with India. Neves will likely to take more interest in foreign affairs. He has never visited  India, although his state Minas Gerais has been active in business with India, even attracting Indian investment – TCS and Infosys both have global delivery centres there. But it surely should be on his agenda, whether he wins or not.

Ambassador Viswanathan is Distinguished Fellow, Latin America Studies, Gateway House. He is the former Indian Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela, and Consul General in Sao Paulo. 

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References

[1] Phillips, Dom, ‘Brazil’s Presidential Election, Round 2: It’s the Economy, Estúpido’, Time, 7 October 2014, <http://time.com/3479322/brazil-presidential-election-rousseff-neves/>