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Brazilians to elect a new president in an atypically sour mood

Paulo Sotero

Paulo Sotero shares his take on the upcoming second round of the Brazilian Presidential elections this Sunday, October 26th.

With their country’s economy at a standstill, Brazilians go back to the polls this Sunday in an atypically sour mood to decide whether to extend the mandate of President Dilma Rousseff for four more years or replace her with Senator Aécio Neves, a popular former governor of Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second richest state after São Paulo. Opinion polls released this week showed Rousseff gaining on Neves for the first time, who pulled a stunning turnaround to end in second place in the October 5th first round of vote, way ahead of once favorite candidate, environmentalist Marina Silva. Failures in first round opinion polls were made. However, the unusual volatility of the race even made analysts that seemed convinced of Rousseff’s reelection hedge their bets by avoiding making definitive predictions. One pollster who worked for campaigns of gubernatorial candidates of the president’s coalition told former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at a rally held in the Southern capital of Porto Alegre on Wednesday that his analyses indicated Aécio Neves could win the race.

Three weeks of second round campaigning that ended Friday, October 24th, with a nationally televised debate between the two contenders did little to lighten the poisonous political atmosphere created in the race’s initial 40-days of highly negative electoral tactics used by all major candidates, but especially by Rousseff’s camp.

Less than 72 hours before the electoral sections opened on Sunday morning to receive some 115 million of the 142.5 million registered voters, VEJA, Brazil’s largest weekly magazine dropped a bomb on the campaign. “Dilma and Lula Knew Everything,” the publication announced in a cover story released on Thursday evening, one day ahead of schedule, referring to the fraud of billions of dollars in contracts of the state oil giant Petrobras that has rocked Brazil since March.

The accuser, Eduardo Youssef, is a foreign exchange dealer and one of the two people who exposed the scandal and signed plea bargain agreements with authorities. Rousseff, who has the reputation for honesty among Brazilian, angrily reacted, accusing VEJA of “electoral terrorism.” The unproven accusation could help the president win some sympathy from voters on Sunday. With the potential number of suspects estimated in the hundreds, including politicians, political operatives and senior executives of major companies that supply goods and services to Petrobras, the Petrolão, as the scandal was dubbed by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, could torment Rousseff for the next four years, if she wins reelection on Sunday. It will inevitably complicate her task of governing effectively after a bruising campaign that did not produce a political mandate and was marked more by the burning of bridges with the political adversaries and a skeptical business community than by creating the conditions to bring the country together in a moment of great economic uncertainty. It may also interfere with the next government’s attempts to improve the country’s international relations, which lost ground in recent years. According to published reports, Petrobras, a publicly traded company in the international capital markets which was the target of alleged spying activities by the United States’ National Security Agency, causing President Rousseff to cancel a state visit to Washington in 2013, is under investigation by the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

About the Author

Paulo Sotero

Paulo Sotero

Distinguished Fellow, Brazil Institute
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Brazil Institute

The Brazil Institute—the only country-specific policy institution focused on Brazil in Washington—works to foster understanding of Brazil’s complex reality and to support more consequential relations between Brazilian and U.S. institutions in all sectors. The Brazil Institute plays this role by producing independent research and programs that bridge the gap between scholarship and policy, and by serving as a crossroads for leading policymakers, scholars and private sector representatives who are committed to addressing Brazil’s challenges and opportunities.  Read more