RIO DE JANEIRO: Despite economic woes and corruption, Brazilians appear ready to entrust incumbent Dilma Rousseff with the task of rebooting the world’s seventh biggest economy in tomorrow’s presidential elections.
Latest polls out on Thursday saw Rousseff stretching a double-digit first round lead over her main challenger, environmentalist Marina Silva, and winning a run-off by seven percentage points.
Rousseff, Brazil’s first female leader and a former guerrilla jailed and tortured under the 1965-85 military dictatorship, retains the support of millions of voters who have benefited from a decade of extensive welfare support begun under her Workers Party (PT) predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Under Lula, massive welfare programs such as the Bolsa Familia (family allowance) helped lift some 40 million voters out of poverty, swelling a burgeoning middle class who underpinned a consumer boom that has now faded amid economic recession.
In Thursday’s final televised debate, watched by some 50 million people, Russeff asked rhetorically “who has the most experience” and “the determination to undertake necessary reform”, while her rivals castigated her government’s economic record and corruption scandals on its watch. Even before Rousseff, 66, took office in 2011 another renowned female politician had lost faith in the PT.
Silva, born into a poor family of Amazon rubber tappers, served as Lula’s environment minister and alongside Rousseff, his one-time energy minister whom he would promote to chief of staff and then pick as his successor. Having quit over policy clashes, Silva caused a stir when she stood for the Green Party in 2010 and came in third.
Lula’s enduring popularity helped propel Rousseff to victory then and his support this year has pushed his protege back into pole position after Silva did well in the early running by decrying corruption and state intervention in the economy.
AFP
