Rousseff and Neves race for support in tight election runoff

AFP/Brasilia

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and challenger Aecio Neves launched their campaigns yesterday for a tight run-off election, vying for the support of frustrated voters demanding change amid an economic slowdown.After a dramatic race, the leftist incumbent won Sunday’s first-round poll with 41.59% of the vote to 33.55% for business favorite Neves, who enters the second round with strong momentum after staging an improbable comeback against popular environmentalist Marina Silva.Just a month ago Silva looked set to become multi-racial Brazil’s first black president, upending the campaign when she took her late running mate’s place atop the Socialist ticket after his death in a plane crash, vowing to bring a “new politics” to the world’s seventh-largest economy.But Neves, a former governor and the scion of an influential political family, mobilised his powerful Social Democratic Party (PSDB) machine to reverse Silva’s lead on the eve of the vote. Markets reacted favourably, with Sao Paulo stocks rising 5.6% in morning trade. Both Rousseff and Neves were looking for Silva’s endorsement yesterday  - but none has been forthcoming. Silva, who grew up poor and illiterate in the Amazon before rising to become a respected conservation activist, senator and environment minister, forcefully but fleetingly tapped frustration with corruption scandals, poor public services and four years of economic slowdown. But while “change” has been the buzzword of the campaign, voters ultimately opted for the two parties that have ruled Brazil for the past 20 years: Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, in power since 2003, and Neves’s PSDB. Voters were also choosing 27 governors, 513 congressmen and 1,069 regional lawmakers, as well as a third of the senate - with a total of more than 26,000 candidates to choose from.Yet it is the presidential contest that provides the most telling snapshot of the political state of a giant emerging nation. That snapshot is by no means conclusive, however. Sunday saw Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, shed some 5% on her 2010 first-round vote. At the same time, her PT won the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second-most populous with 10.6% of the total electorate and also former governor Neves’s supposed stronghold. With Silva’s campaign having imploded, the question for voters who engaged in angry protests against corruption and poor quality public services last year is now how to prod their politicians towards change and whether the run-off candidates can deliver it.Rousseff, 66, has also been battling an emerging scandal at state-owned oil giant Petrobras, which she formerly chaired, amid allegations by a former director of huge kickbacks largely benefiting PT politicians and their allies.The former leftist guerrilla, who was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Brazil’s dictatorship, needs around a third of Silva’s votes to win a second term. Silva remained neutral in the 2010 presidential run-off after placing third on the Green Party ticket, but her desire for more economic liberalism may push her towards endorsing Neves.