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President Dilma Rousseff’s expected victory margin over closest rival Marina Silva has surged to nine percentage points in a second-round runoff in Brazil’s presidential election, an opinion poll showed, causing stocks and the real currency to tumble. |
Rousseff would win the runoff with 47.7% of the votes against 38.7% for Silva, polling firm MDA said, widening her lead from the one-point advantage she had in the previous survey by the firm last week.
Another survey released by the Vox Populi polling firm showed Rousseff with a seven-point lead over Silva in a runoff, unchanged from a week earlier.
Polls by MDA and Vox Populi are not as closely followed as surveys by the bigger research firms Datafolha and Ibope, which use larger samples of voters and conduct polls more frequently.
The first round of Brazil’s presidential election is on Sunday. No candidate is expected to win more than 50% of the valid votes, which would trigger a runoff round between the top two vote-getters on October 26.
The election is being closely watched by many investors who would like to see Silva, a popular environmentalist who has embraced pro-market policies, unseat leftist Rousseff and end 12 years of Workers’ Party rule.
Some investors blame Rousseff’s policies for the stagnation of Latin America’s largest economy, and markets were weighed down by a Datafolha poll on Friday that was confirmed by the new polls showing the incumbent consolidating her re-election chances.
In a first-round vote, Rousseff would take 40.4% of the votes and environmentalist Silva 25.2%, the MDA poll showed. That compares with 36% for Rousseff and 27% for Silva in the previous MDA poll.
Support for centrist candidate Aecio Neves, the market favourite stuck in third place, has risen to 19.8% from 17.6% last week.
Silva, who was thrust into the race when her party’s original candidate was killed in a plane crash last month, initially surged on the support of voters who back her pledge to clean up Brazilian politics. But criticism of her ability to govern without Brazil’s traditional parties from the Rousseff and Neves campaigns has eroded her support.
The MDA poll showed that Silva’s rejection rate, or those who say they would never vote for her, has risen to 42.5% from 29.3% in late August, while Rousseff’s rejection numbers have fallen four points to 41%.
Silva could still defeat Rousseff in a second-round runoff when she would have the benefit of equal media exposure required by Brazilian electoral law. She is also expected to win the votes of the bulk of supporters of the other opposition candidate Neves. Analysts expect Rousseff’s advantage over Silva to continue to increase this week but at a slower pace.
