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Brazil:
The
moment of truth
has arrived
Contrary to expectations
set out a few weeks ago,
the President of Brazil,
Dilma
Rousseff, maintains her
lead on the Brazilian
political scene with just a
few hours left
to determine the
future of the nation, with voters
poised to choose between Rousseff and the candidate
of the
right-wing Brazilian Social
Democracy Party (PSDB) this
Sunday, October 26.
In
the first round,
Dilma
left Marina Silva of
the Brazilian Socialist Party
(PSB) lagging behind in
third place,
and came out eight points
ahead of Neves,
in an election
which saw over
80% of
voters participate.
Thus,
with
Dilma at the forefront of
the political landscape
of
Brazil,
the usual
two-rounds of voting
will be repeated, which during the past
twelve years
have favored the
Workers’ Party
(PT).
Luiz Inacio
Lula da
Silva won
twice in
the first round (2002
and 2006), but
both times his win was
confirmed with a second ballot.
Dilma
added two more
victories to win
her first term and
a seventh
success in the first round
of the recent
election. Should she win on
Sunday, it would be the
eighth consecutive victory
for the party.
Aécio
Neves can
not, however, be underestimated, given
the neoliberal right’s
enormous
media apparatus, pulling
out all the stops to support the candidate,
despite the charges of corruption
which have been levied against him.
In
the first round
the polls
were wrong, favoring Marina Silva.
The
difference between Dilma
and Neves
was about
8%, some eight
million votes, while
Marina
failed to
surpass 21% of the
vote.
Although Congress
is
sharply divided, so far the
PT has gained enough votes
to change the
social landscape
of
Brazil and
improve living conditions for
those with lower incomes.
The
terms of
the showdown between the
PT and
PSDB are
favorable to
Dilma.
Aécio Neves’
surprising defeat
in the
province of
Minas
Gerais,
where he was governor,
clearly losing out to the PT candidate
in the first round, also goes
against him.
According to political scientist
Emir
Sader, the real opposition
party in
Brazil
is the
right-wing media, which backed
a strong Marina
in the first round and
then
allied itself to the
PSDB as part of its
strategy of "everyone against
Dilma." This sector is
overwhelmingly
neoliberal in its
content and promotes a
distancing from
Mercosur,
BRICS, UNASUR, CELAC
and Latin American integration.
Dilma
defends herself
very well.
The Workers’ Party
government’s greatest
accomplishment has been ensuring that
some 36
million Brazilians have been lifted
out of extreme
poverty,
since Lula came to power in
2003,
including 22 million during
Dilma Rousseff’s term in
office. Added to this is
the reduction in unemployment, which
has remained at
only five
or six percent in this, the
largest country in
South America.
If
we consider
that the
PSB, which ran Marina Silva as their
candidate, is not a traditional
right-wing party,
it can be assumed
that a good portion
of those votes
will not go
to Aécio
Neves.
Professor
and analyst
Emir
Sader believes that, in
the second round,
the PT’s
program
must continue to prioritize
social issues, South-South
solidarity and a greater
role for the state, which has been
expanded
by Dilma through the
anti-poverty programs
initiated by
Lula.
The
second round
is scheduled
for this Sunday, October 28.
Regardless of the
fickleness of the polls
on voting intention, the
ballot boxes will provide the
final verdict.
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