ELECTIONS-BRAZIL: Weakened Lula Faces Second Round

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 2 2006 (IPS) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took nearly 49 percent of the vote in Sunday’s elections, but he is facing difficult conditions as he starts out on the campaign for a second round on Oct. 29 against his main rival, Geraldo Alckmin.

Failing to win the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff represented a defeat for Lula, who in the last polls carried out before the elections had ratings of 53 percent, pointing to an easy first-round victory.

Instead, he took 48.61 percent of the vote, while former Sao Paulo governor Alckmin performed better than expected, garnering 41.64 percent.

That gives Alckmin, who defeated Lula in the country’s richest regions – the industrial south and southeast and the central agricultural zone – room for optimism with respect to the possibility of seeing his share of the electorate continue to grow.

The first-round victories of gubernatorial candidates from Alckmin’s centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) in the two states with the largest populations and economies, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, is another factor in favour of Lula’s opponent.

Alckmin’s strong showing in the state of Sao Paulo, home to 28 million voters (22 percent of the electorate), made it clear that people approve of his performance as governor, a position he held from 2001 to early this year. That will be one of his main arguments in the debates and campaign over the next four weeks.

Analysts attribute Lula’s failure to secure outright reelection Sunday to a new scandal involving members of his Workers Party (PT) accused of attempting to buy a “dossier” that would have implicated leading opposition candidates in a corruption case.

The details are not yet clear, but police arrested two men linked to the PT and have identified at least six other members of the party as being involved in the supposed attempt to carry out a smear campaign.

The investigations could lead to negative results for Lula if, for example, it is proven that the 1.7 million reals (783,000 dollars) that were to be paid in exchange for the dossier came from his party or from public funds.

Infighting, which is expected to be put off until after the elections, is predicted by members of the PT who accuse a Sao Paulo faction of dominating the party and adopting practices that triggered this scandal and the one that broke out last year when a former legislator from an allied party, Roberto Jefferson, accused the PT of paying bribes to lawmakers to push through its initiatives.

Lula was just 1.4 percentage points short of an absolute majority. In theory all he needs to do is attract the votes of a small portion of those who cast their ballots Sunday for other leftist candidates, especially Heloisa Helena of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), founded two years ago by PT dissidents.

Helena took 6.85 percent of the vote Sunday and announced that she would urge voters to cast blank ballots on Oct. 29. Although it is unlikely that she herself will come out in favour of Lula after accusing her old party, the PT, of becoming a “criminal organisation,” her backers will find themselves facing the choice of voting for Lula or favouring the centre-right PSDB, which they accuse of being “neoliberal”.

Also in favour of Lula is the fact that the PT itself did much better than expected, winning 83 seats in the lower house of Congress – less than the 91 it took in 2002, but more than the 81 it currently holds, after the departure of several dissidents.

The PT also won four state governorships in the first round, including a surprise in the northeastern state of Bahía, where former labour minister Jacques Wagner triumphed against all projections.

In 2002, the PT took only three state governments.

And it may still win two more in the runoff, although its candidates are not the favourites.

The presidential campaign will now require debates on policy proposals and the past performance of the two candidates. The experience of Lula, who has run in five presidential elections since 1989, and the economic and social achievements of his government will work in his favour, if he is able to overcome the psychological effects of the latest scandal and the frustration of failing to win a first-round victory.

Alckmin has never been a brilliant debater. But so far his track record as governor of Sao Paulo has not been criticised, even though one of its weakpoints is the high level of crime in that area, as reflected earlier this year when organised crime went on a rampage in several cities, setting buses on fire, killing police officers, and instigating coordinated, simultaneous riots in prisons.

In Sunday’s legislative elections, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) took the largest number of seats – 89 – in the Chamber of Deputies. The other big parties are the PT and the PSDB and its ally, the Liberal Front Party (PFL).

But the PMDB failed in its goal to win between eight and 10 state governments, winning outright victories in only four, although it will dispute six others on Oct. 29.

Only three other parties earned the minimum five percent of votes needed to obtain public campaign funds, broadcasting time and the right to participate in parliamentary commissions. That measure will force some of the 29 smaller parties, 16 of which hold seats in the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate, to join forces.

The results also indicate that voters “absolved” several politicians accused of corruption.

The Sao Paulo deputy-elect is Paulo Maluf, a former Sao Paulo mayor and governor widely seen as a symbol of political corruption in Brazil, although he has never been sentenced in court.

And former president Fernando Collor de Mello, who was impeached in 1992 for corruption and was banned from running for public office for eight years, was elected senator for the small state of Alagoas, in the northeast.

Several ex-legislators implicated in scandals were also elected, like former finance minister Antonio Palocci, who will represent Sao Paulo in the lower house of Congress.