Brazil's presidential candidate for the Workers' Party Dilma Rousseff delivers a speech.
In a week’s time, Brazil’s 136 million voters will decide their next president: the former right-hand woman of outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, or an efficient ex-governor of Sao Paulo state.
The polls point to a likely victory for Lula’s choice: Dilma Rousseff, his 62-year-old former chief minister who narrowly missed out on outright victory in an October 3 first round of the presidential elections.
Jose Serra, the 68-year-old self-proclaimed technocrat who faces her in next week’s runoff, trails by a significant margin.
To get a shot at a possible upset, he has to snatch almost all the 19 million votes that went to a defeated Greens Party candidate in the first round, Marina Silva — an unlikely feat, analysts say.
But both Serra and Rousseff are doing all they can to sway Silva’s support base, most notably by wooing evangelical voters who flocked to her because of a perception that Rousseff would legislate the ruling Workers’ Party opposition to Brazil’s ban on abortion.
Rousseff’s advantage is clear, recent polls show.
On Thursday, the Ibope firm put Rouseff ahead with 51 per cent of voter intentions, against 40 per cent for Serra. (more…)
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The US has said countries like India and Brazil have the most to gain from 
G-20 and they should ensure that the grouping emerges as the premier platform for multilateral economic cooperation. “I think Brazil and India are among those countries that actually have the greatest to gain, and have been among the strongest supporters of the G-20 ,” a senior treasury department official told reporters on Thursday, ahead of this weekend’s G-20 meeting of finance ministers in Seoul , South Korea.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner , among others, are slated to attend the meeting.
The official said the G-20 needs to grapple with a set of economic challenges facing the global economy in a way that results in a stronger framework for cooperative action. He said the role of emerging markets in global economic affairs is being recognised by their inclusion in the G-20.
Hence, it is in their interest that the G-20 emerges as the “premier locus for multilateral cooperation on issues of financial and economic functioning” , he added.
The official said an agreement covering various global issues was “within sight” and it would lead to a very important shift towards dynamic emerging markets.
On the International Monetary Fund reforms, he said, “With regard to the composition of the (IMF) Board, we also believe that it’s extremely important to see the composition of the board evolve in line with the growing role and responsibilities of the dynamic emerging markets in the system.”
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com
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Ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff widened her lead ahead of Brazil’s presidential run-off election, a poll showed on Wednesday, confirming a rebound after her recent slide in support.
Rousseff had 51% of voter support ahead of the October 31 vote, according to the Ibope poll published by the online edition of Estado de São Paulo newspaper. The centrist opposition challenger José Serra had 40%.
In a similar Ibope poll on October 13, Rousseff, the handpicked would-be successor to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had 49% support to Serra’s 43%.
The result is similar to a Vox Populi poll earlier this week that showed Rousseff with a 12-percentage-point lead.
The poll is likely to encourage Lula’s former chief of staff, who had been struggling since she failed to win a majority in the October 3 first-round election.
Rousseff’s campaign has been shaken by corruption allegations involving a former aide and attacks by religious leaders over her past views on abortion.
The 62-year-old Rousseff of the ruling Workers’ Party had fallen just short of a first round win on October 3 with 47% of the votes against 33% for former São Paulo state governor Serra. (more…)
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Dilma Rousseff may have failed to win in the first round of voting because she favoured legalising abortion. Reuters
Presidential contenders Dilma Rousseff and Jose Serra court religious right, altering their positions on ‘moral’ issues.
The issue of abortion has turned into a weapon that threatens to take away votes from the candidates in the campaign for the second round of presidential elections in Brazil, with conservative religious groups using it as a bargaining chip in exchange for their support.
But this situation does not reflect the position of the majority of voters, who are in favour of the decriminalisation of abortion, say analysts and representatives of the women’s movement, which criticise the use of women’s bodies as a means of electoral pressure.
The question of whether abortion, which is currently punishable by up to 10 years in prison in Brazil, should be legalised has become a flashpoint issue in the campaign for the October 31 runoff vote between Dilma Rousseff of the governing Workers Party (PT) and her rival José Serra of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).
Earlier indications that Rousseff favoured the legalisation of abortion were seen as the main reason she failed to win outright in the first round of voting, on October 3.
As in most of Latin America, abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.
A decisive number of voters defected from the Rousseff camp to Green Party candidate Marina Silva, an evangelical Christian.
Silva, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (no relation) former environment minister, is opposed to abortion and proposed holding a referendum on whether or not it should be legalised. (more…)
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The presidential election race in Brazil is tightening and the momentum seems to be with the centrist challenger Jose Serra with two weeks to go before the final round of voting.
The front-runner from the Workers Party Dilma Rousseff, the chosen successor of the hugely popular outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, looked like a certain winner. But she has seen her lead dwindle from 20 percentage points two weeks ago after the first round of voting to 4-6 percent, various polls in recent days indicate.
This is a surprise. Brazil is booming, its economy slated to score 7.5 percent growth this year, with the promise of an offshore oil bonanza by the end of this decade. Its currency, the real, is rising so high against the U.S. dollar that government is putting controls on hot money that has flooded in to ride the growth. Voters usually reward such economic success.
The immediate cause of Rousseff’s declining support is yet another corruption scandal, involving a family member of her closest aide who has been accused to taking money to help win government contracts. A further problem for Rousseff is a growing controversy over abortion rights and the influential Roman Catholic Church isn’t entirely at ease with her evangelical Protestant faith.
But concern is growing about how Rousseff would govern, whether she could control the powerful labor union barons and her own party and whether she could follow Lula’s careful balance between social programs and financial orthodoxy. The underlying fear is that after a decade of impressive growth Brazil could sink back into its old, depressing pattern of deficits, inflation and currency crises.
Beneath today’s encouraging financial figures are ominous signs. Inflation is creeping up again and interest rates have had to be raised 2 percentage points this year to more than 10 percent. Growth is slowing, in part because China is slowing and in the Lula years Brazil has become strikingly dependent on the Chinese market, which has replaced the United States as Brazil’s biggest customer. (more…)
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