Talk Elections

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%A3o_presidencial_brasileira_de_2014

Most recent poll:

Dilma 39% Silva (formerly Green, now "Sustainability Network) 35%, Aécio Neves (Social Democrats) 12% Eduardo Campos (Brazilian Socialist Party) 4%

It's too early to predict anything but we are going to obviously have a second round at least. In Brazil's History is very uncommon a president that fails to get reelected, though reelection was created on 97 anyway, but I think that Aécio and Eduardo have lot's of potential to grow.

Also, I'd like to say that this poll that you pointed out is from a polling organization that is not so well known in Brazil. For the purpose of more accurate polling, we should consider Ibope, Datafolha and CNT, those are the best ones!

AFAIK it's not only uncommon, it never happened.

Yes that is true. Even on the state and municipal level this is not common :/

Does Silva have a chance? What could be her winning strategy?

In the poll you showed, Neves only got 12%, where does Brazilian right wingers go if they dont vote Neves?

Brazilian right will vote for who can beat Dilma. There are rumors that Serra will change to PPS (former commies turned right-wing) and support Campos' presidential bid.

Dilma began her campaign in 2010 polling at 3%, so, as soon as the campaign starts, expect Neves to climb to 20-25% really fast.

OK, thats weird, but I suppose the low level of party affiliation accounts for that.

But to rephrase my main question. Does Silva have a chance? Is there any dynamic in which she becomes the anti-Dilma?

I don't think so, she could get to 2nd round, but, IMHO, no way she beats Dilma. Once the campaign begins, Aecio will steal some of her supporters (who are just people who want to kick Dilma and will vote for the "strongest" candidate: that means whomever PSDB puts as candidate) and Eduardo Campos, as a left-winger, will probably get some of her votes, too (maybe he'll also damage Dilma). And PSB is a strong brand now, so I wouldn't be too surprised if Campos got 20% of the vote.

So, I believe Marina will not get anywhere near 35%, I could be wrong, of course, but I think she'll get about 25%, considering her good results in 2010 and that she may be stronger now.

Finally, we have to remember that PV may run Gabeira this time, and he's a big name, so Marina could have worse results now than she had in 2010... But, considering the polls that's not likely. For the moment.

If I had to make a prediction -it's absurd, because things change in one years, politicians make gaffes...-, it'd be something like this:

Dilma 38-43%
Aecio 23-28%
Marina 16-21%
Eduardo 13-18%
Gabeira 4-5%
PSOL 1-2%
Others 1%

I know that's more than 100%, but you get the idea :p

The only President who avoided a runoff (twice) was Cardoso, but he was mighty lucky. In 1994 he got basically elected on Itamar's back (who left office with highest approvals any President enjoyed before Lula). In 1998 he was able to secure wide machine support by back-scene manipulation, including convincing the PDMB to deny their nomination to now really pissed off Itamar (the only one who would have a chance to beat him).

AFAIK runoff was not an option before 1990. For example, Kubitschek got elected in 1955 with less than 40%


Well, since until 1998 Presidents were unable to run for reelection, that's hardly surprising. There were two running after a break (Alves and Vargas), but these are hardly encouraging examples, the former died before taking office and the latter shot himself, lol.

I've heard some folks in the PMDB wants former President Jose Sarney (1985-1990) to run. That would be hilarious, considering his age (will be 84 in 2014) and reputation of a corrupt oligarch.

On the other hand, Brazil is a land of comebacks. Lula got elected after three failed campaigns. Vargas was voted to office five years after being deposed. Fernando Collor resurfaced again. Even freaking Paulo Maluf is still around. And Itamar attempted to run in 1998, 2006 and 2010.

Hell, the reanimated corpse of Tancredo Neves declaring would not surprise me ;D

Aécio is running.

I meant real Tancredo Neves.

He's not as dangerous as his grandson, the cocaine man.

Regarding other races I wonder if Fernie will run for reelection or give another try at Emperor of Alagoas.

Collor will have the fight for his life against Governor Vilela (PSDB) in senatorial election. I think that running for governorship would be a better path for him.
In Rio, Campos can get support of former governor Garotinho (PR).

That would be a shame ! Garotinho is one of the most populist, corrupt and hypocrite politician I've ever seen!

I wouldn't say that Marina has great chances of being President, though She has some nice ideas. The only to go well in 2014 is creating a coalition of mid-size parties such as PDT, PC do B, PV or at least  the small socialist PSOL.

However, Neves and Campos are likely to pick up those other parties on theirs coalitions. PPS, PP, DEM and PTB are likely to support Neves, PDT, PPS, PMN could support both Campos and Aécio but it depends...

And supporting Campos in Rio would backfire badly as he was behind oil royalties take-over.

PC do B is very likely to endorse Dilma and supporting her would be vital for Flavio Dino's gubernatorial campaign in Maranhão, even she endorses Sarney's candidate.
Electoral Justice ordered a reapportionment of seats in Chamber. This will affect state legislatures too.
Until 12 congressmen: 3 x congressmen in state legislature (a state with 10 congressmen will have 30 state legislators)
More than 12 congressman: 3 x 12 + (state congressmen - 12). (Bahia have 39 congressmen and 63 state legislators).
Alagoas, Espirito Santo, Pernambuco, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul: -1
Paraíba and Piauí: -2
Amazonas and Santa Catarina: +1
Ceará and Minas Gerais: +2
Pará: +4

Any other possible candidates from the PSDB outside of Aecio The Plastic Man Neves?

They should run Chu-Chu, with Serra in 2018. Imagine that pattern, Serra-ChuChu-Serra-ChuChu-Serra :P

Why is Alckman called Chu-chu?

Chuchu means Cabbage, Actualy his nickname was Picolé de Chuchu, Cabbage Popsicle. He was a guy without any kind of charisma, he was not like Lula... Do you ever noticed how cabbage doesn't have any kind of taste...

Cabbage? That's not what we call chuchu in Minas Gerais ;p

It's supposed to be "chayote" in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote

I started writing this last week... no time to finish, but I'll post It anyway and try to finish until tomorrow.



Brazilian presidential elections can only feasible be polled within some months before election day, due the complicated balance between ideological, class based, personal, alliance wise, media manipulated,  regional and machine oriented voting patterns.
Right now, it's time to build alliances, test tubing, discourse creation and maturation, playing defense and be wise on attacks.


Not at all; and there isn't. She became just a tool (this was clear at some point, in 2010, but most voters only realized It after election) and her ticket (and also her new - nonexistent - political movement) was basically a media creation. No serious party would be willing to support her.


They'll go anywhere big media tell them to go. Neves just doesn't have sufficient name recognition outside MG yet, and this could be a symptom that media magnates may be insecure of his candidacy.


Chuchu = Chayote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote)
It's an extremely watery-flavored veggie. The original pun was calling him a Chuchu popsicle, so strong tasted he is.

Anyway, the party labels are even less meaningful this cycle than they used to be in the last 15 years.

PSDB, since the mid 90's is a big tent party which ranges from compassionate conservatism to social-liberalism; sustained by the 1%ers, modernized oligarchs and media moguls, they're 'socially liberal' (in the American sense) pro-business and generally have an anti-unionist discourse (despite recently pandering to unions, after 2010 election).
Aécio's government, on the other hand, was heavily corporatist ('was' is a really wrong word in this case, but officially He is a senator, now). Media control reached unbelievable levels in a democratic state; there are plenty of state programs, all of them siamesely twinned with the business community and interests who, on their part, have practically the hegemony of the state assembly (which is the most expensive and money wasting in the country, with hilarious pork spending even to the awfully low Brazilian standards) and every channel of political speech. Teacher's wages are a joke, but the plentiful managerial positions for young management graduates and silly MB A's completely unaware of the world have a sweet, sweet paying.

The level of political machine control of SP state in these 20 years of PSDB power is also kinda scary, but, at least, they divide It with the other loot... parties. In MG all the main positions are personal appointments: the group around Aécio puts someone they want in a coalition party and then this is the participation of that party on government. In the end, only PT and a small fraction of PMDB is not controlled by them. PCdoB opposes those who pay them less, so they aren't so vocally opposed to the government and PSoL is a non-issue. I call the state of affairs in this funny state of mine, oximorously, 'Democratic Fascism".
To make things stranger, He may not be so committed to maintain the SP financial hegemony over the country - and this may be the reason He started to court Campos. There are huge disagreements over the feasibility of this last statement.

To understand Campos:
The PSB is the party assented over the most ancient political tradition by now, even if in its contemporary incarnation they have very few in common with their origins.
It started in '47, with the heirs of radicalism; an anti-Vargas left party, with a fairly nationalist position, but on the most strong culturally liberal and republicanist tradition of the French type of left. Not linked to unions, nevertheless they had a broad workers, peasants and middle-class oriented discourse and stated they agreed the bulk of Marxist criticism and analysis, but It shouldn't be taken as dogma and that liberal democracy should never be downplayed. They had an impressive penetration on Rio's intellectual groups (IE, few votes) and São Paulo's populists (oddly, linkened to Jânio Quadros), but, apart of these, only amongst student unions and the 'Peasant Leagues'. After the '64 coup, they merged into PMDB, while part of their youth wing would help forming the POLOP guerrilla group.
With the return of multipartidarism, the party was re-founded with the same original manifesto and venerable intellectuals, but now controlled by former PCB bureaucrats who were unwilling to defend any kind of dictatorship (in Rio and the south, I think) a mix of the former left of the Labours and the same pre-coup populists (in SP and the south) an improbable coalition of impoverished and sub-employed shantytown dwelling workers with the former middle-class student leadership who struggled against the dictatorship (in MG) and non-Trotskyite ultra-leftists who were at odds with the Trotskyite ultra-leftists inside the PT (in the NE) – amongst other types of heterodox left. On other words: a much more leftist outfit, leaning libertarian-Marxist and, as It’s plainly observable, completely dysfunctional. To the ‘Petistas’ this was the bourgeois left, to PCdoB, It was their non-revolutionary cousins.
So, It was natural that, when old left-populist maverick Miguel Arraes (who was akin to the party before ’64) changed from the PMDB to the PSB, after ‘89’s election, He became the party’s strong man. Following him, reform-minded wealthy northeasterners come dominating the party. It was also boosted with Petistas and commies defections. From ’89 on, the party was a junior partner to the ever growing PT, but they were able to ally themselves with the PMDB, the PSDB, the PPS or the PDT, especially in situations where they were stronger than the PT, thus the (at the time) extremely uncompromising Petista rank-and-file were unwilling to accept being in a junior position. They also started to run anyone who could be elected (independently of ideological consistence).
Arraes kept being a somewhat controversial maverick: there was a grassroots political cult of him, amongst the poorer strata of the peasantry in PE (once a guy told me he cured his sick child with an Arraes’ photograph infusion!), and He oriented his administration specifically to them. The social results were great, improving amazingly the situation of one of the country’s most miserable populations, but He’s got a deeply disgruntled middle and upper class opposition, in a place where political machines and coronels still had lots of power.


Big breath... more tomorrow; It's late and a six pack is enough for tonight.

So who is Silva a "tool" for?

Haha That is it! I alwats have a problem translating chuchu in English but I think you could understand my explanation, couldn't  you?

Of course I can, Ralph Nader. Don't forget to post something in the 2008 campaign thread, BTW!

The same diffuse interest which's vetting Campos now and is insecure with Aécio. She doesn't have any political base, only electoral propaganda machine; her advisers come from within the SP financial interests intelligentsia; periodically, conservative media praises her despite she's doing absolutely nothing.

It's not any kind of cabal meeting in a room controlling things (despite, sure, there will always be people silly enough to believe such a thing). I won't even say she's consciously doing this (as It happens so many times in these cases - I think she truly believes she's doing something), but, basically, Marina's role is to take votes from Dilma and, if everything goes right, transfer some of those to whoever is the anointed at the second round. This was what happened in 2010 and will just be astroturf turned on 330V in 2014. Now she doesn't even have a proper party.

I know this may sound a little hackish, nevertheless, believe me: Brazilian parties may be utterly shjtty, but nonexistent 'movements' from outside any kind of preexisting political base, concocted at Paulista Av. and Jardim Botânico Neighbourhood, can't be called anything but tools. If this was serious, she would have passed the last 3 years building It. She didn't. It could have worked.

PSOL collected signatures and got registration in almost 2 years. Marina has to hurry up if she wants anything in 2014.

So, continuing on Campos' genesis as a viable candidate...



Eduardo Campos is Arraes’ grandson. Raised in the oligarchy, but heir to his grandpa political tradition, Campos is a graduated economist and was turned into Finances Secretary by Arraes, during his third tenure as Governor. This was the first time I’ve noticed a severe problem with our press: being a vocal oppositor of FHC’s administration, the main magazines and newspapers only talked about PE to blast any Arraes’ actions, even when It was obvious  there seemed to be nothing wrong with them. Then, a scandal with precatorys (writs of payment?) appeared on the press – initially It was one more scheme linked to arch-crook Paulo Maluf, but soon It was found that the financial operation passed through PE’s cashier. Actually, It got stuck in It. The next day, all big papers had the news on front page, and second page attacks on Arraes  were everywhere (few things on Maluf). Surprisingly, Campos came to public with the whole state spreadsheet opened and showed three very interesting things: 1 – all the money which could be profited by the operation was thrown inside PE’s budget and expended on public actions, nothing went to private actors; 2 - FHC simply stopped repassing federal funds to PE, thus, without the precatorys’ funds the state would be completely broken; 3 – the private groups linked to the scheme were long date donators to the PSDB in SP. The next day, the issue was out of media, but attacks on Arraes and Campos kept been taken, always remembering “they were linked to the precatorys scandal” but telling nothing more than this, neither investigating any further the case. Summing up: they entered a corrupt scheme, took the money to be stolen and used It in benefit of the state, once they weren’t receiving  the due share of national funds… Weird, isn’t It?
Weird, but not enough to secure reelection. The state economy was in shambles anyway, a policemen strike , which spawned from there throughout the country, left the sate in complete disarray and both men were facing prosecution. If It wasn’t for some strength built in neighbour states, plus the mayor of Belo Horizonte and Luísa Erundina’s strength in SP, It should be their demise. Nevertheless, they were junior league, again.

PS. I've forgotten - there also was João Capiberibe in AP, the Quixote who stands against King Sarney, the Long-gone-but-never-really-gone. This is another very interesting case of a media/judges/conservative-political-machine fiend bashed by a scandal-which-was-not-a-scandal-and-that-nobody-remembers-what-happend-except-there-was-a-scandal, but, being only a Quixote, he was found guilty. And, then, when some fact surfaced, not guilty at all. But this story does not belong here.

This had become an unwanted and sporadic (putative) candidate's list, but I think I'll keep doing it, anyway.
A little breath and some more on Campos' genesis:


Talking about weird things, in the process of building up the 2002 elections, the PSB welcomed RJ’s governor Anthony Garotinho. A former PCB youth turned born-again Christian, Garotinho had broken both with his mentor, veteran Populist-Labour Caudillo Leonel Brizola (who denied him the presidential ticket on PDT), and with the local PT, which He accused of wanting nothing more than political machine positions. This was quite a bold move and alienated the small still ideological base the party had, driving historical supporters and officials away, but drew in a new electorate which was completely ignored until then: the fledging evangelical poor suburban population. Garotinho hiked the presidential election polls to the point It seemed unlikely José Serra would be able to take It in the second round with Lula.
Then, as expected, the press suddenly started to find lots of dirty things about Garotinho, specially after, according to political insiders, a couple of investigators linked to the PSDB searched for every little piece of paper they could find in RJ state countryside, backed by insider information about his tax collecting. Sure, in the subsequent electoral cycles, when Petistas tried to do the same, the press made a giant hiss, calling them thieves and accusing of playing dirty, but at this time, everybody was pretty happy and Garotinho sunk.

It was because a threesold of 5%. Garotinho helped PSB nationally to get it. Garotinho split with PDT and PT when he supported undercover Luiz Paulo Conde (then PFL) reelection bid in 2000 against Brizola and Lieutenant Governor Benedita da Silva. In 2002, Garotinho was believed that he would stay at midrange and that brought a panic among PSB members. São Paulo (Jacó Bittar, former mayor of Campinas) and Bahia (Lidice da Mata, now senator) dropped out fearing a failure. But with Ciro's colapse and evangelical support, Garotinho got a late surge but received Serra's attacks at last 15 days of campaign and failed to get to runoff, although he was able to get Rosinha's victory at first round in Rio.
He split with PSB because he hoped to get a ministerial job in Lula's government like Ciro Gomes, but failed. He went to PMDB with promise of being presidential candidate in 2006. His demise in 2006 was brought by a pro-Lula PMDB wing that feared that a populist Garotinho campaign would take many voters from him in post-Mensalão wave, while PSDB and right-wings feared that Garotinho would take their place as one of main forces and becoming a Brazilian version of Kirchner and Chavez. Veja (most pro-PSDB magazine) published an attack towards Garotinho.

Basically that.
I would just point out that Garotinho's problem with PT and Brizola came, initially, from the well known petista eagerness for administrative positions and machine control.
Garotinho's break with the PSB is a little less plain, OTOH. I'll try to develop this, next post. But, for now, I'm just travelling to MG's 'coast'. ;D So, If you're willing to take the presentation to our foreigner colleagues on the next week-and-a-half, feel free!



I'd say it's more the opposite: PSDB (most pro-Veja party)
The way our old elites found to keep control of the country, after Collor's disaster, was very, very innovative.

batmacumba...You're good. Veja was a good magazine, but they radicalized as Lula became able to win election. I remember when Garotinho called PT of "partido da boquinha". Garotinho owes his election in 1998 because PT intervention to give support to him, because PSDB neutrality in run-off against César Maia (Cabral who was Legislative Assembly speaker allied with Garotinho and switched some time after to PMDB) and evangelical support. Brizola by 1998 wasn't so influential in Rio politics. To show that, he got only a 4th place in Rio mayoral election and a 6th place in 2002 senatorial election.
Roberto Marinho (Globo's owner) said after Collor's debacle that "We won't be able to elect one of us again". Then they propped FHC.
Enjoy your moqueca capixaba, batmacumba.

Thanks! It was delicious, with sururú.

So, after many kilos of moqueca, pirão, shrimp, crabs and sun, let's take this back.


Arraes, on the other hand, was elected congressman with such a share of the votes, He was able to boost the PSB caucus, completed with lots of pastors and evangelic community leaders from throughout the country – and some of the old socialists who were able to surf the evangelical wave. This had a lot of impact later, once It attached a part of the evangelic leadership to a social-christian speech (only speech, they are the most crooked of them all and have no other ideology than pork, but they were detached of automatic conservative support). He was also able to elect a good share of governors in the surrounding states. It was pretty clear, at this point, that the whole move was made to guarantee a share of 5% of the congressional voting.
This was also important to cement the PSB position as a governing partner to Lula and, as Roberto Freire with his ex-commie PPS decided that neo-liberalism was warmer and sexier than neo-keynesianism, attract fellow maverick Ciro Gomes to the party.


More of this when my digestive system recovers from seafood.

On a small note,

Marina Silva defended and gave an eulogy to the polemic deputy Pr. Marco Feliciano, a fundamentalist who managed to be chosen president of the congress' Human Rights comission. LGBT's, blacks and feminists are in a giant hiss, since then (together with everyone who is not a fascist pig).

Every friend of mine who voted for her 'xingou muito no twitter' (stupid meme), i.e., put in every virtual community that they wouldn't vote for her anymore. It seems that she is exchanging young bobos (her main urban vote in 2010) for fundamentalist christians.

Bad move, IMO.

If she continues that way, my family may vote for her.

If I remember well what you tell about your family, they seem a perfect target for Dudu Beleza. Marina will probably take the poorer conservatives, if she maintain this course.

I was joking, they'll vote for Neves, even if they don't like him, for sure (one of my aunts may vote for Silva: she voted for her in the 1st round in 2010, then switched to Serra).

Oh, I've noticed. Nothing better than a good sarcasm with deadpan. This doesn't mean that we can't keep the joke and make the discussion serious, doesn't it? ;)

I know that I shoud finish the Dudu Beleza narrative and pass on to Marina, but I'm on that lazy week after vacations. Maybe sunday.

Marina is getting signatures to get her party approved in evangelical churches.

Any word on potential PSOL candidates?

Not Yet. Any movement is still under surface.

So,

in 2002 this country turned upside down. Everyone I know either was turned into a radical leftist or wasn't so bothered if radical leftists changed the country radically. So it was quite a surprise for me when Lula took his 'Peace and Love Little Lula' persona and declared he would maintain the main economic foundations.
Well, he proved that time (and after) he is kind of a political genious. With that movement, he achieved two things:
- elected a freaking good share of the congress;
- accumulated a freking good amount of money in the national treasure.

The first achievement was important only on the long run, because he still didn't have a disciplinated amount of enough congressmen to pass the legislation he needed, so his chief-of staff, José Dirceu, started a payola system (or kept one that existed, according to some) and was caught on this corrupted scheme.
The second one allowed for the payment of foreign debt interests, which let the country with a big surplus of money to invest back.

This second scheme was devised by a team of politicians and economists, with Ciro Gomes playing an important role, and the PSB going to TV to defend and make people believe it could work. Given the party's history with academics, they were given the Ministry of Science and Tecnology and started a subtle but important change.
It must be noticed that, at this point, no one in the media was taking much attention to them.

While Garotinho's struggle with the press went on (SP elite was pissed off with his tentative of being the main rival to Lula, which, coupled with obscure schemes that surfaced along with the campain, made him the crook of preference for the media to beat a little), Lula and Arraes arranged for the creation of a new right-wing-but-aligned-with-the-government party, where they put a bunch of evangelical leaders, specially Bishop Marcelo Crivella, the political voice of the widespread Kingdom of God's Universal Church. Garotinho, made into the new national crook, started approaching Pr. Everaldo, a figure considered too radical even for other neopentecostals (Garotinho started to defend creationism) and, with this new party guaranteeing the support of the now strong religious politicians, was put aside.
In order to disapear politically with him, Arraes called for renewing membership of his party and simply didn't sign Garotinho's file, avoiding any news of expelling.

Also, he managed to put his trusted allies on key positions: the Secretary of Ports and the government managed eletrical corporation which deals with the energy generated by hidreletrics on the São Francisco River.
With this combo (Sc&Tech, Ports and energy on the NE) the old maverick prepared his last trump: building his grandson as the most strong state candidate this country had seen in a long time.

From 2002 to 2006, the NE region - and specially the state of Pernambuco - saw an unprecedent amount of investment. Not only the federal programs aimed to eradicate extreme poverty managed to make a huge impact on the backwards local rural economy, but electrification projects, the organization of ports infrastructure and technological investments associated to this brought an incipient industrialization - and the local government, led by Arraes' foes was completely unable to  profit on that.
Using a very  low profile approach, in order to avoid reaction, Campos, now Science and Technology Minister, built his candidacy to the state election in 2006.
Arraes' death, early that year, made his partisans more eager to regain the governorship and, starting in the 3rd place, Campos obtained a sounding victory, even with the very negative campain against him, based on his state treasurer's years scandal. His allies made a impressive showing in the neighbouring states, which, coupled with the PT's inability to make good showings in the NE, made him the region's Lulista reference.

With this state of affairs, Campos reshaped his party, getting rid both of old socialists (unless they were willing to adhere his left-corporatist ways - which, specially for the former PCB's, was no problem at all - except for AP's Don Quixote) and of the more vocally engaged evangelicals. The party also managed to bring in a sector of industrialists (including the president of the all powerful São Paulo State Industrial Federation - FIESP - which were historical enemies of any kind of left) and high profile celebrity candidates, like former footballer Romário (who, surprisingly, is one of the best congresspeople around).
In the following years, Campos re-industrialized (or finally industrialized, depending on the POV)his state and reached a record 80% positive feedback in local polls. After having a ridiculously easy reelection, in 2010 (he was rumored to be called for the VP slot in all but PSoL's ticket) he got off the 2012 municipal elections as the only great winner, crushing both enemies and allies in his capital city, and electing a very nice share of mayors in importante cities nationwide.

When the 2012 election was over, the whole country finally perceived what was happening and the SP based media found there was a undeniable power up in the north. In this last 8 months, the politic establishment is shaken. Reports about lines of entrepreneurs waiting to talk with him pops now and then and he started to demonstrate a less governist approach (with the small share of government aligned pundits - mainly bloggers - calling him an oppositor) beginning a discourse of "we can do more".

What is this "more" is the great question, at this moment.

Well, the first attempt to deal with Campos momentum was to testtube him as a potential VP to Marina Silva's candidacy.

[segue onto Marina]

After protests, Dilma collapsed in polls
Dilma (PT): 30%
Marina (Network): 23%
Aécio Neves (PSDB): 17%
Eduardo Campos (PSB): 7%
Her approvals went from 57% to 30%, while negatives went from 9% to 25%. Many are now supporting Lula's comeback.

Too early but...

Instituto MDA/CNT September 4th 2013

First round

Dilma Roussef 36,4%
Marina Silva 22,4%
Aécio Neves 15,2%
Eduardo Campos 5,2%


Runoff

Dilma Roussef 40,7%
Marina Silva 31,9%

Dilma Roussef 44,0%
Aécio Neves 24,5%

Dilma Roussef 46,7%
Eduardo Campos 16,8%

New poll today September 26th 2013 Ibope


First round

Dilma Roussef 38%
Marina Silva 16%
Aécio Neves 11%
Eduardo Campos 4%

38% > 16%+11%+4% So, Dilma would win in the first round. Even though, Ibope surveyed some scenarios for a possible runoff election

Dilma Roussef 43%
Marina Silva 26%

Dilma Roussef 45%
Aécio Neves 21%

Dilma Roussef 46%
Eduardo Campos 14%

So is Neves like a crappy candidate or something? I thought he would be doing better.

1. Aécio Neves was a very popular governor of Minas Gerais. His New Public Management policies were considered best practices by many papers about public management. But being a good state manager doesn´t mean being a good national leader. After the failure of Sarney and Collor as presidents, many Brazilians do not trust in governors as presidents. Governors are considered too local and not national. Among the three most recent elected presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Dilma Roussef were ministers and Lula was a labor union leader, and then, a party leader. The same can be told about Eduardo Campos, the very popular governor of Pernambuco.

2. Aécio Neves' performance as senator is weak

3. Many people do not like his lifestyle: no family, active nightlife. Two years ago he was caught driving drunk.

4. Even though Neves is an opponent of president Roussef, he was not benefited by the mass protests of June. The protests started as a movement against the rise of the bus fare in the city of São Paulo, ruled by a PT (Roussef's party) mayor, but it spread to other cities, ruled by other parties. Than, they became protests against everything that is going bad in Brazil, and their target became all politicians. Since PSDB (Neves' party) has many state governors, this party became also target of the demonstrators. Specially after the violent reaction of the São Paulo riot police. The state of São Paulo has a PSDB governor. Only Marina Silva, who does not have a party yet, benefited from the protests.

5. São Paulo is the home of PSDB and many PSDB voters from São Paulo prefer a candidate from their state. They would not admit to the survey one year before the election that they would vote for Aécio Neves, even if they would, if they did not have other choice.


Even though, I think that Aécio Neves will have between 30% and 40% of the votes on October 2014. At least 30% of the votes go to anti-left candidates. Besides, since PSDB and its allies have a significant number of seats in the Congress, Aécio Neves will have much more minutes of TV advertising in August/September 2014 than Marina Silva.

A big maneuver is going to happen. Marina Silva is going to join PSB and can form an alliance with Campos. PSB received some notorious right-wingers in last times, like Paulo Bornhausen (son of Jorge Bornhausen) and Heráclito Fortes (one of DEM defeated senators by left-wing wave in 2010).

Point being Marina Silva is now seen as right-wing (courting reactionary evangelicals of late) or PSB accepting anyone (ideologically-vacant)?

Who cares? She is just a sell-out, that's all we need to know.

Part and parcel of being a left-winger today is finding out just how far your elected representative has sold you out!

Major news guys! Marina failed to create its own party (Rede Sustentabilidade) and decided to join on Governor Campos´Party, the Brazilian Socialist Party!

Marina Silva is neither leftist nor rightist. She is like a sailor looking for the direction of the wind.

Her 19% in 2010 included

1. Typical green party voters: middle-upper class social liberal young people who supported environmentalism, gay marriage, abortion, legalization of marijuana
2. Evangelic conservatives who opposed gay marriage, abortion and legalization of marijuana
3. People who approved Lula administration, disapproved the conservatism of José Serra campaign, but disapproved the corruption scandals in which PT leaders were involved in 2005 and  did not trust in Dilma Roussef after a scandal was found in her ministry 20 days before the election (and the media increased the relevance of this scandal)

Due to the contradictions inside her supporting base, I don't believe she could win more than 50% of the votes. I think she would have fewer than 19% in 2014. I compare Marina Silva with Ross Perot.


Having Marina Silva as a vice make Eduardo Campos stronger. The probability of him defeating Dilma Roussef in the runoff is higher than the probability of Aécio Neves doing this.

For what reasons such people voted for her?

Marina is an evangelic as well. Unlike most members of the Green Party, due to her religious belief, she prefered to remain in silence about those issues. Serra was failing to get votes and Dilma was seen by many conservatives as a pro-abortion pro-gay marriage candidate because many reverends said so. My sister's babysitter and my maid voted on Marina because she was a protestant. In the second round, they ended up voting on Dilma :P

PSB is accepting anyone because Eduardo Campos is obsessed about being President. He wants Marina to be VP, he wants to form a great coaliton (even if that means creating a non-ideological party) and he wants to be the Third Way that will finish second in the race.

Marina, as ways, didn't know really well what she would do after loosing the possibility of creating the #Rede. She considered the Popular Socialist Party (former Communist Party, similar ideology now of the UK Labour Party) but she prefered Campo's Party because she really wants new people in politics. She couldn't keep it with moralism and give up of her own party, she would be ignoring the 19 million that counted on her! She decided to join in the PSB but actually they are saying that they are forming a coalition. Basically, the Sustainability Net is a clandestine party inside the PSB and it's very likely that Marina will be Campos' VP after all.

There is only one candidature that was pretty damaged after that, and unfortunately it was Aécio Neves' one. Campos/Marina is stronger than Aécio/Any one else and it will be very difficult for him managing to go to the Second Round. His only chances are if what happened with Ciro Gomes (former PMDB, former PSDB, former PPS, former PSB - that he left after Campos gave up of endorsing Dilma) in 2002 happens with Campos! On that year, José Serra managed to go to the Second Round using Ciro's own failures (He said bad words frequently)  and comparing him to Fernando Collor de Mello ("Another fresh face from the Northeast?").


This could happen with Eduardo Campos as well, although he is pretty well liked by the media and even the right-wingers are not so happy about Aécio Neves!

Playing with mathematics, I calculated some scenarios of a runoff between Dilma Roussef and Eduardo Campos.

In all scenarios, I considered that everyone who voted for José Serra in 2010 will vote for Eduardo Campos in 2014. I considered possibilities of transfer of votes from Dilma Roussef to Eduardo Campos.

In 2010, Dilma Roussef defeated José Serra by 56-44

Scenario 1
In Pernambuco where Roussef defeated Serra by 75,7-24,3, Campos defeats Roussef by 60-40
No modification in other states
Roussef defeats Campos by 54,5-45,6

Scenario 2
In Pernambuco, Campos defeats Roussef by 60-40
In the other 8 Northeastern states, Campos steals 10% of Roussef's votes
Roussef defeats Campos by 52,9-47,1

Scenario 3
Considering that in the states where Marina Silva was strong, her transfer of votes to the opponent of Roussef will be 75% instead of only a little bit more than 50%
In Pernambuco, Campos defeats Roussef by 60-40
In the other 8 Northeastern states, Campos steals 10% of Roussef's votes
In Distrito Federal, where Marina Silva had 42% in the first round, Campos defeats Roussef by 60-40
In Rio de Janeiro, where Marina Silva had 31,5% in the first round, Roussef defeats Campos by 51,6-48,4, instead of 60-40 in 2010
Roussef defeats Campos by 52,0-48,0

Scenario 4
In Pernambuco, Campos defeats Roussef by 60-40
In the other 8 Northeastern states, Campos steals 10% of Roussef's votes
In Distrito Federal, where Marina Silva had 42% in the first round, Campos defeats Roussef by 60-40
In Rio de Janeiro, where Marina Silva had 31,5% in the first round, Roussef defeats Campos by 51,6-48,4, instead of 60-40 in 2010
In Minas Gerais, the candidates tie instead of Roussef win 58-42, as it happened in 2010
Roussef defeats Campos by 51,1-48,9

Datafolha October 12, 2013

Now, when Marina Silva joined PSB, she and Eduardo Campos may not run both. It is one or the other.


Scenario 1 (most feasible)
Dilma Roussef (PT) 42%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 21%
Eduardo Campos (PSB) 15%

Scenario 2
Dilma Roussef (PT) 39%
Marina Silva (PSB) 29%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 17%

Scenario 3
Dilma Roussef (PT) 40%
José Serra (PSDB) 25%
Eduardo Campos (PSB) 15%

Scenario 4
Dilma Roussef (PT) 37%
Marina Silva (PSB) 28%
José Serra (PSDB) 20%


Runoff

Dilma Roussef 47%
Marina Silva 41%

Dilma Roussef 54%
Aécio Neves 31%

Dilma Roussef 51%
José Serra 33%

Dilma Roussef 54%
Eduardo Campos 28%

Name Recognition:
Eduardo Campos -57%
Dilma Roussef - 99%
José Serra - 98%
Marina Silva - 88%
Aécio Neves - 78%

Serra is willing to make a Coup D'Etat on the PSDB but Aécio has much higher chances than Serra...

Burito, you made a very pessimistic prospect for Dilma in Pernambuco. Many people won't understand Campos split with PT and he'll have difficulties to win in Pernambuco.

I though that Eduardo Campos could not be understimated because in 2010, both Eduardo Campos and Dilma Roussef were elected by wide margins in Pernambuco, but Eduardo had 80% and Dilma had 60% in the first round. In 2006, PT was not in the Eduardo's coalition for governor of Pernambuco. The PT candidate was the third and Eduardo was elected for the first time. I though that 2014 would be the opposite of 1989 in Pernambuco. In 1989, Lula had a slight majority (51-49) in that state. Lula won the Metropolitan Region of Recife and the coast (zona da mata), and Collor won the countryside (agreste and sertão). I though that in 2014, Dilma would win the countryside and Eduardo would win the metropolitan region and the coast.

But I made my prospects before Datafolha poll. You can see the complete data here http://media.folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2013/10/14/intencao-de-voto-presidente.pdf

There is no data for state, only for region, but we can see that according to this pool, in a runoff Dilma vs. Eduardo, Dilma wins against Eduardo by 54-28 in the whole country and by 61-28 in the Northeast.
All the opposition candidates - Aécio Neves, José Serra, Eduardo Campos and Marina Silva - have a growth potential because in this poll, many of the interviewed people that are right-wing, PSDB and disapprove Dilma's administration answered that they will not vote (branco/nulo/nenhum) although we know that in the day of the election they will vote for one of them.
However, even if in the election day all the voters that did not decide yet vote for the opposition, Dilma would win 61-39 in the Northeast.

Datafolha November 29th, 2013


Scenario 1
Dilma Roussef (PT) 47%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 19%
Eduardo Campos (PSB) 11%

Scenario 2
Dilma Roussef (PT) 42%
Marina Silva (PSB) 26%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 15%

Scenario 3
Dilma Roussef (PT) 45%
José Serra (PSDB) 22%
Eduardo Campos (PSB) 11%

Scenario 4
Dilma Roussef (PT) 41%
Marina Silva (PSB) 24%
José Serra (PSDB) 19%

In the most probable scenario (scenario 1), Dilma increased 5 points and Aécio decreased 2 points from October 11th

Observation: this poll was conducted after two weeks of large media coverage of the arrest of two important members of the Workers Party (PT) because of the congressmen vote buying scandal from 2005.

How can Dilma gain in support when her corrupt party goes down in flames?

Governor of Sergipe Marcelo Deda, 53, died today due to a digestive cancer in Sao Paulo. He was serving his 2nd term, but he was out of office since May. He served in State Legislature, Chamber of Deputies (as PT caucus leader) and as Mayor of Aracaju (2001-06). He'll be replaced by Lieutenant Governor Jackson Barreto (PMDB).

Newspaper Folha de S. Paulo released today a survey about the opinion of the Brazilians on economic and social issues, in order to evaluate if they are more left-wing or right-wing

Economic Issues

Economic Growth
67% Government is the most responsible for investment
24% Private firms are the most responsible for investiment

Role of the government
58% Government should prevent abuses commited by firms
31% Government should not interfere

Firms
57% Government should help national firms which have risk to become bankrupt
34% Government should not help these firms

Labor legislation
54% Labor legislation more protects workers than harms firms
34% Labor legislation more harm firms than protects workers

Social policies
47% Their lives will improve the more they receive government benefits
47% The fewer they depend on the government, the better will be their lives

Taxes
43% It is better to pay more taxes and receive free education and health
49% It is better to pay fewer taxes and pay for private education and health services


Social issues

Religion
12% Trusting in god doesn't make someone a better person
87% Trusting in god makes someone a better person

Drugs
15% Should be legalized
83% Should not be legalized

Teenagers
26% Criminal teenagers should not be punished as if they were adults
72% Criminal teenagers should be punished as if they were adults

Death penalty
49% Oppose
47% Support

Unions
49% Are important to support the workers
45% Are used by politicians

Poverty
65% There is poverty because of the lack of equal opportunities
32% There is poverty because poor people are lazy

Weapons
68% Should be forbidden because they are a threat
30% Should be permitted because the individuals have right to defend themselves

Immigration
67% Good for economic and cultural development
25% Creates many problems

Homossexuality
67% Should be accepted
25% Should not be accepted


So, it is possible to observe that most of the Brazilians are centrist, a little closer to the left on economic issues and a little closer to the right on social issues.

Considering the average of the answers
10% of the Brazilians are on the left
31% of the Brazilians are on the center-left
20% of the Brazilians are on the center
29% of the Brazilians are on the center-right
10% of the Brazilians are on the right

Among the Brazilians on the right
37% pretend to vote for Dilma Roussef
22% pretend to vote for Aécio Neves
8% pretend to vote for Eduardo Campos

Among the Brazilians on the left
54% pretend to vote for Dilma Roussef
16% pretend to vote for Aécio Neves
13% pretend to vote for Eduardo Campos

Datafolha February 20th, 2014

First round

Dilma Roussef 47%
Aécio Neves 17%
Eduardo Campos 12%


Runoff

Dilma Roussef 54%
Aécio Neves 27%

Dilma Roussef 55%
Eduardo Campos 23%


Views on Dilma Roussef administration

41% Good/Very good
37% Regular
21% Bad/Very bad

The numbers of White and NOTA aboves has been increasing significantly and this is sort of dangerous. Any vote that comes as a White Vote or as a NOTA will not be considered a valid vote. If this sort of vote doesn't reduce, Dilma will be the fist PT candidate to be elected in the first round.

However, I feel that we are going to see a strong PSOL candidature due to those very same NOTA in the Urban Centers. I could see them winning something around 5% to 11%.

PSOL candidate will be Randolfe. He is not much known as Heloísa Helena or Plínio de Arruda Sampaio. Even the left doesn't like him very much.
He is mentioned by less than 1% in the polls.

However, I think that there will be runoff because Dilma is close to her ceiling. She has more votes than approval rate.

Datafolha April 3th

Dilma Roussef 38%
Aécio Neves 16%
Eduardo Campos 10%
Pastor Everaldo 2%
Others 4%
None 20%
Don't know 9%

Runoff

Dilma Roussef 51%
Aécio Neves 31%

Dilma Roussef 50%
Eduardo Campos 27%


Dilma Roussef Job Rating

Good/Very good 36%
Regular 39%
Bad/Very bad 25%

One important thing to have in mind: Brazil has NO political debate. There's virtually no right-wing here, except maybe for fringe grass-roots movements which rely heavily upon the web.

To make things worse, the "slightly less to the left left-wing" coalition has very little chance of winning, and thats despite 12 consecutive years of a far-left Bolivarian aligned government which is leading us to a huge crisis. Thats 3 presidential terms people.

And they do not lack chances of winning only for being absolutely amateurish. They essentially are no different from the Workers Party (PT) ideologically, and they actually depend upon the PT to keep the little power they still have.

Contrarily to what most people think, our military government, which lasted 21 years from 1964 to 1985, did very little against the so-called "moderate" left. Newspapers like Pasquim were absolutely free to circulate. Never had the left-wing book industry profited so much. The only leftists they truly prosecuted were the ones engaged on terrorist activities. Our current president, Dilma Roussef, was one of those. However, there was also another group heavily prosecuted by the Military Junta. Our Right-Wing. The same Right-Wing which trusted upon the Military for the counter-revolution in 1964, and which saw 3 years ago that things were taking a rather nasty path, is the very same right wing which was ostracised when they realised that the military government did in fact intend to remain in power. Carlos Lacerda, our main conservative leader by then, was a guest at Bill Buckley's firing line, where he explained it all.

The result? We emerged from the regime without an organised Right-Wing. Since then, every single political party here has proudly identified as left-wing over fears of being ridiculed by the media, which very certainly associated the military government with Right-Wing. Trust me, they did it. In 2007, still in HS, I was vocal at defending traditionally right-wing positions, which are actually quite different from the ones the military junta defended. For that, I was frequently called fascist, nazi, friend of the "milicos". If Jonah Goldberg had reasons to write Liberal Fascism in the USA, I'm pretty sure he could write a neverending book on the issue in Brazil.

Today it is essentially a crime to be a right-winger, though things have been changing over the last 6 or 5 years, largely due to a work started by Olavo de Carvalho, a philosopher, Brazilian, currently living in Virginia.

Olavo de Carvalho is a joke and even my family, full of conservatives, ackowledges that. Are you Olavo, or what?

Sakamoto is a joke. Not Olavo.

And no, of course I'm not him.

This guy is not serious

Many brazilians who did not participate in the "guerrilha" and engaged in a peaceful resistance against the military regime were killed

Édson Luís and some other students were killed by the riot police in 1968
Rubens Paiva, a famous left-wing polician, was disappeared in 1971
Wladmir Herzog, a journalist, was tortured and killed in 1975
Manuel Fiel Filho, a steelworker, was tortured and killed in 1975, only because he was suspicious of being a member of the Brazilian Communist Party
Pedro Pomar was killed in 1976 because he was a member of the Brazilian Communist Party
Many natives were killed during the construction of a highway in the middle of the Amazon Forest
A bomb letter, sent by far-right terrorists, supporters of the regime, killed three members of the Association of Brazilian Lawyers in 1980

And many other journalists and political activies were arrested and tortured, many artists and academic had to live abroad


So, the sentence "The only leftists they truly prosecuted were the ones engaged on terrorist activities." is completely false.

Besides, most of the activities of the guerrilha groups that opposed the military regime cannot be defined as "terrorism". Their target were policemen, soldiers, foreign diplomats and banks. The civilian population was not target of these groups.

Negligible numbers of innocent people were prosecuted by the military government government, thats true. On that time, on the other hand, the homicide rate was much lower. There was law and order, and no gun control. Point is: whilst a very few people were possibly prosecuted by the military government, the Pasquim was sold everywhere and other left-wing publications were free to circulate. Even censorship wasn't that horrible: except for news pertaining to guerrilha related activities, censorship was negligible.

And you are the one joking here. Targeting banks is not terrorism? Killing innocent people on these attacks is not terrorism? Attacking ambassadors is not terrorism? By this hilarious definition of terrorism, the plane which hit the Pentagon wasn't engaged on terrorist activities. The attack upon the American Embassy in Iran in 1979, also, wasn't a terrorist act.

The only thing I'm seeing here is apologism of a dictature, which usually isn't allowed or tolerated here.

Yeah, this guy is basically saying: "our dictature wasn't that bad. Conservative christians and obedient people had nothing to fear about" which is laughable, sad and dangerous at the same time.

Don't worry, we're watching this thread and if it gets too out of hand or the comments get horrendous, I'll take necessary action.

Go look on a dictionary for the definition of the word "dictatorship". Then try finding anything similar to this on my posts.

I was just exposing a fact: the military government got rid of our Right-Wing, paving the way for the Left-Wing to go almost unchallenged in the last 3 decades.

In case you still doubt:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2014/04/politics-brazil

When did I say that? In fact, what was said was that the LEFTISTS not involved with guerrilha had very little to fear. Junkies, criminal, terrorists, etc, are the ones who HAD something to fear. On the other hand, Carlos Lacerda was prosecuted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHeVUBIJ0g8

I find it very interesting to read from a conservative Brazilian. This can be a fertile ground for debate and show another perspective. Could you give us a brief overview of how the brazilian conservatives and right wingers are organized? Which parties do they prefer and vote for, are there regional strong holds and why - from your point of view - they are so marginalized? And could compare your nations situation with for example Chile, Argentina or Paraguay? I look forward to your point of view.

Since I'm relatively new to this forum, it is not to me to express myself to strongly about the forum rules, but I think we should not be to narrow minded and politically correct here. Having said all that, I bow my head, of course, before the leader of the forum. ;)

The right-wing party that backed the military regime was splited into two parties in 1985: the Progressive Party (PP) and the Liberal Front (PFL). Both are very small parties now. They are members of the old right, supported by rural oligarchs and old military officers.

The new right, composed by business associations and mass media, is not very well represented by the Brazilian party system, but they prefer the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB). This party was founded by moderate opponents of the military regime, who were center-left when they were young and became centrist or center-right when they became older. Despite the name, PSDB is not a social democratic party. One of the founders, Franco Montoro, admitted that he was a christian democrat and not a social democrat.

PSDB is the party of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil between 1995 and 2002. Cardoso built a coalition between PSDB and PFL. Although he was a leftist academic in the 1960s, his admistration implemented free-market policies, like privatization and de-regulation.

Nowadays, young supporters of free-market policies join PSDB, although this party was considered a center-left party in its early days. They dislike the parties of the military regime (PP and PFL) because the military regime implemented a state-led capitalist development model.

There are many conservatives that do not feel represented by any party. They dislike the Brazilian party system and rely on conservative think thanks like "Instituto Millenium" and on Internet propaganda. They are very active in online discussion foruns and in the comments pages of the News websites.

The conservatives don't need to be strong opponents of Dilma Roussef administration, because they are well represented in this administration. Dilma's Workers Party (PT) and the Communist Party (PCdoB) are minority in the Congress. She needs support of conservative parties. That's why they have some ministries.

In the average, the Brazilians are more conservative than Americans and much more conservative than Europeans in social, religious, cultural and moral issues. And they are more progressive than Americans in economic issues. Social, religious, cultural and moral issues do not have big influence in the elections. That's why most of the Brazilian poor people are social conservative and voted for Lula and Dilma. Her administration will not try to legalize abortion. PT is one of the few left-wing parties in the world that does not have a consensus supporting abortion legalization. There are pro-life and pro-choice members in the party.

Although most of the Brazilians are more inclined to the left in economic issues, there is an importante school of economics supporting small government in the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the mass media support "small government" and free market. Most of its readers belong to the top rich 20% of the population.

After a month of very bad news for Dilma Roussef


7th and 8th May

Dilma Roussef 37%
Aécio Neves 20%
Eduardo Campos 11%
Pastor Everaldo 3%
Randolfe Rodrigues 1%
Others 3%


Runoff

Dilma Roussef 47%
Aécio Neves 36%

Dilma Roussef 49%
Eduardo Campos 32%

That's not true about abortion. Plenty (most?) left-wing parties in Latin America don't support legalized abortion. The United Socialist Party in Venezuela doesn't. The Sandinistas don't. Correa doesn't. I don't think Kirchner does either but I could be wrong about that one only.

Sure. That's why I told that the Workers Party is one of the few left-wing parties which do not support abortion legalization as a party (there are some politicians in the party who support, but there is no party statement concerning this issue).
But it is not the only one. Some other left-wing parties in Latin America do not support abortion legalization.

But there are others which support. Pepe Mujica legalized abortion in Uruguay. The PRD legalized abortion in México City.

Datafolha, 3th-5th June

First Round

Dilma Roussef 34%
Aécio Neves 19%
Eduardo Campos 7%
Pastor Everaldo 4%

Other 5%

None 17%
Don't know 13%


Runoff

Dilma Roussef 46%
Aécio Neves 38%

Dilma Roussef 47%
Eduardo Campos 32%


Dilma Job Aproval

Good/Very Good 33%
Regular 38%
Bad/Very Bad 28%


This is the last poll before the World Cup, which will take place between June 12th and July 13th. Problably, these numbers will not change in the next 40 days, because the country will be more focused on the World Cup. Only after July 13th, the campaign will really start.
But if protests during the World Cup become violent, Dilma will be harmed. Ironically, protests organized by the far-left can help the center-right opponent in the campaign against the center-left incumbent.

I'm pretty sure a runoff is unavoidable. The only times it didn't happen were 1994 and 1998 and Cardoso's popularity was, in long term, kind of fluke. Even Lula, with his great popularity in 2006, had to face Chu-Chu (and annihilate him). Also, IIRC up until last weeks Dilma was thought to win in the first round, just to face Serra again.

That being said, I really don't see the Plastic Man from Minas winning this election, Dilma's current troubles nowwithstanding.

(Though I admit: I lost touch with Brazilian politics recently :P )

I am sure that there will be runoff. Dilma's approval rate is much bellow 50%. It is very hard for someone who consider her administration "regular" vote for her in the first round.

The national conventions of the parties took place in June. Today, it was the deadline for the parties to subscribe their candidates in the electoral justice. So, the candidates are officially defined. There are 11 candidates:

Dilma Roussef
Minister during Lula administration (2003-2010), president since 2011 looking for reelection
Party: PT (Workers Party)
Ideology: Center left
Vice: Michel Temer, not a member of PT but of PMDB, a centrist party backing Dilma
Last polls: Between 34% and 39%

Aécio Neves
Grandson of Tancredo Neves, first civilian president electer after the military dictatorship who died before the innauguration, governor of the state of Minas Gerais (2003-2010) and now, senator of this state
Party: PSDB (Brazilian Social Democratic Party)
Ideology: Center right, New Public Management (don't consider the name of the party)
Vice: Aloysio Nunes, senator of the state of São Paulo. Like Dilma Roussef, participated in the left-wing guerrilha against the military dictatorship, but unlike Dilma, became a conservative after getting old
Last polls: Between 19% and 20%

Eduardo Campos
Minister of Science and Technology during Lula administration (2004-2005), governor of the state of Pernambuco (2007-2014)
Party: PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party)
Ideology: Center (don't consider the name of the party)
Vice: Marina Silva, Minister of Environment during Lula administration (2003-2008), Green Party candidate in 2010, had 19% of the vote
Last polls: 11%

Pastor Everaldo
Party: PSC (Christian Social Party)
Ideology: Evangelical Right
Last polls: 3%

Eduardo Jorge
Party: PV (Green Party)
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%

Luciana Genro
Party: PSOL (Party of Socialism and Freedom)
Ideology: left, the party was founded by former PT members who consider that PT became too centrist
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%

Zé Maria
Party: PSTU (Unified Workers Socialist Party)
Ideology: far left, trotskyism
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%

Mauro Iasi
Party: PCB (Brazilian Communist Party)
Ideology: far left. This is a small communist party. The bigger one, the Communist Party from Brazil (PCdoB), which is another party, is backing Dilma Roussef
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%

Levy Fidelix
Party: PRTB
Ideology: Right
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%

José Maria Eymael
Party: PSDC (Social Democratic Christian Party)
Ideology: Right
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%

Rui Costa Pimenta
Party: PCO (Party of the Labor Cause)
Ideology: far left, trotskyism
Last polls: Between 0% and 1%


The campaign may start tomorrow. However, the campaign will not be important before July 13th, the day of the final of the World Cup. After that, the campaign will receive full atention.

The first round will take place in October 5th. There is no doubt that Dilma Roussef and Aécio Neves will go to the runoff, which will take place in October 26th. The other candidates have no chances. Probably, most of the Eduardo Campos and Pastor Everaldo voters will vote for Aécio Neves in the second round. However, the polls show an advantage for Dilma Roussef in the first round, and these aditional votes for Aécio might be not enough.

I believe Neves died over a month after his set inauguration, but, due to illness, was not able to take an oath, resulting in Sarney becoming Acting President upon being sworn-in as Vice President. Nevertheless, Neves is officially counted as 30th President of Brazil out of courtesy. Some sources lists his term as from March 15 to April 21, 1985, when he was incapacitated, though most lists him as unable to assume office, even formally.

Sure

The innauguration of Tancredo Neves was scheduled to March 15, 1985. He became sick and had to go to the hospital on March 14. And then, he never assumed office. He died on April 21. Vice presidente Sarney assumed office as a provisory president on March 15 and became the definitive president on April 21.
The constitution was ignored. Since the elected president did not assume office, the elected vice president could not have assumed as the president, because the vice could not substitute someone that has never been the president. If the constitution were respected, the president of the Chamber of Deputies should have become the provisory president on March 15.


I should have written
Grandson of Tancredo Neves, first civilian president electer after the military dictatorship who died before the innauguration that never happened

It would have explained better

lol

Thanks :) I've always been confused about that issue.

I like that. "The constitution was ignored".

Well, yesterday's débâcle did not help Dilma.

Also I think the saying that the PSDB is a party of right wingers rather than a right wing party is pertinent considering the previous page's discussion.

That's terrible news for Ed Miliband.

Plinio de Arruda Sampaio, 83, died yesterday after a bone cancer. He started in politics in Democratic Christian Party and was expelled from Congress by military coup in 1964. After amnesty, he joined Workers Party (PT) and served again in Congress and ran for São Paulo's governorship in 1990. In 2005, he switched parties and went to far-left Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), running again for governorship in 2006. He gained national popularity during 2010 presidential campaign, where he was seen as "crazy funny old guy" who was very popular in social networks, but he gained only 0.87% of votes. RIP!

Considering the last four presidential elections, there was no correlation between the result of the Brazilian National Team in the World Cup and the result of the election... ops, there was a clear correlation, in the opposite way.

In 1998, Brazil lost to France, 3-0, and presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso was re-elected. In 2002, Brazil won the World Cup and Lula, who was na oponent of Cardoso, was elected. In 2006, Brazil lost in the quarterfinal to France, and Lula was re-elected. In 2010, Brazil lost in the quarterfinal to Netherlands, and Dilma, backed by Lula, was elected.

The situation now is diferent, because conceding 7 goals at home became a national catastrophe. There was a big cricticism concerning hosting the World Cup, because 5 billion dollars were spent through state-owned bank loans in the 12 stadiums, including 4 located in cities that do not have Strong soccer teams, and so, these stadiums will not become profitable. There were also big concerns about security and the quality of the public transportation to the stadiums. None of the expected big problems occured during the event, and so, the public opinion became more optimistic about the benefits of hosting the World Cup. But maybe, after the defeat in the game against Germany, many Brazilians might pay more attention in the criticism concerning the organization of the World Cup.

The major incident that happened during the event was the fall of a bridge near Mineirão Stadium, in Belo Horizonte, where the game took place. This incident happened four days before the game. Belo Horizonte is the hometown of both Dilma Roussef and Aécio Neves. The mayor of Belo Horizonte, who was in charge of building that bridge, is a political ally of Aécio Neves. The incident will probably not affect the election.

Also Aecio has declared that Sen. Aloysio Nunes (PSB-SP) will be his running mate. I know he ran with PSDB support last time, but what effect might this have? Sao Paulo is the PSDB's home base- Aecio is the first candidate not to come from there, yes?

No effect. São Paulo state is the home of PT and PSDB and has the lowest elasticity. There is a safe 30% for-PT and 45% anti-PT, and the remaining 25% are influenced by other issues than the home state of the candidate. The results of the last elections show that the "paulistas" do not care if a favorite son is running or not. In 1989, the PT candidate was Lula, from São Paulo, and the anti-PT candidate, Collor, (not PSDB yet) was not from São Paulo. In the runoff, Collor won in São Paulo 58:42. In 2010, the PT candidate was Dilma, not from São Paulo, and the anti-PT candidate, Serra, PSDB, was from São Paulo. Serra won in São Paulo 54:46, he had a smaller margin than Collor had.
Yes, Aécio is the first PSDB candidate whose home state is not São Paulo. Maybe, he chose Aloysio Nunes as his running mate in order to keep Peace with the PSDB leaders from São Paulo, the strongest ones. But I guess Aécio will win in São Paulo 55:45 no matter the running mate.

Dilma's lead down to 4 points in a run-off scenario:

()

The numbers of this poll

Runoff scenario

All
Dilma 44%, Aécio 40%

Gender
Male: Dilma 46%, Aécio 40%
Female: Dilma 42%, Aécio 41%

Age
16-24: Dilma 39%, Aécio 46%
25-34: Dilma 42%, Aécio 40%
35-44: Dilma 44%, Aécio 39%
45-59: Dilma 46%, Aécio 39%
60-: Dilma 48%, Aécio 36%

Education Level
Elementary: Dilma 54%, Aécio 31%
High School: Dilma 40%, Aécio 45%
College: Dilma 32%, Aécio 51%

Household Income
Less than 2 minimum wages: Dilma 52%, Aécio 33%
Between 2 and 5 minimum wages: Dilma 41%, Aécio 43%
Between 5 and 10 minimum wages: Dilma 31%, Aécio 56%
More than 10 minimum wages: Dilma 34%, Aécio 53%

Region
Southeast: Dilma 34%, Aécio 49%
South: Dilma 41%, Aécio 37%
Northeast: Dilma 60%, Aécio 28%
Center-West: Dilma 40%, Aécio 48%
North: Dilma 53%, Aécio 35%

Most important states (both located in the Southeast)
São Paulo: Dilma 31%, Aécio 50%
Rio de Janeiro: Dilma 42%, Aécio 39%

Location
Metropolitan Area: Dilma 41%, Aécio 42%
Countryside: Dilma 46%, Aécio 39%

City size
Less than 50k inhabitants: Dilma 50%, Aécio 37%
Between 50k and 200k inhabitants: Dilma 47%, Aécio 39%
Between 200k and 500k inhabitants: Dilma 40%, Aécio 44%
More than 500k inhabitants: Dilma 37%, Aécio 43%

Party identification
PT: Dilma 80%, Aécio 16%
PSDB: Dilma 13%, Aécio 81%
None: Dilma 39%, Aécio 41%

View on Dilma Administration
Good/Very good: Dilma 86%, Aécio 9%
Regular: Dilma 40%, Aécio 43%
Bad/Very bad: Dilma 4%, Aécio 73%

Vote in the first round
Eduardo Campos: Dilma 26%, Aécio 55%
Pastor Everaldo: Dilma 27%, Aécio 59%

Religion
Catholic: Dilma 46%, Aécio 39%
Petencostal Evangelic: Dilma 42%, Aécio 41%
Non-petencostal Evangelic: Dilma 38%, Aécio 48%
Kardecist: Dilma 29%, Aécio 45%
African Religions: Dilma 52%, Aécio 41%
No religion: Dilma 45%, Aécio 35%

Race
White: Dilma 39%, Aécio 44%
"Pardo" (half white, half black): Dilma 46%, Aécio 39%
Black: Dilma 50%, Aécio 34%
Asian: Dilma 40%, Aécio 51%
Native: Dilma 53%, Aécio 37%

Kardecist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritism

3% of the Brazilian population is spiritualist (or Kardecist)

That's pretty crazy.

Why is it crazier than believing there is a God ?

No contradiction. Many spiritualists in Brazil are Christians at the same time. They believe there is a God, they believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, they pray, and they believe in reincarnation.

Glorious news.

Also Levy Fidelix and Eymael are still running? LOL.

On the subject of Brazil, a famous (hilarious, brilliant, etc) attack on Brasilia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he4C7gWEpEU).

The fact that Le Corbusier had as much effect on urban planning as he did was a tragedy for us all. The man who proposed the Plan Voisin deserved to be thrown in prison for it, not followed:

()

What exactly did Le Corbusier do?

Modernist architects believed that architecture had the power to transform humanity for the better; that you could create utopia by designing the right kinds of buildings, because (they believed) rational built environments would result inevitably in rational behavior from the people who lived in them, and so society would progress. Le Corbusier was a particularly articulate and enthusiastic/fanatical example, and was thus extremely influential.

Isn't that in part the kind of thinking that Notes from the Underground was written as a reaction against?

Eduardo Campos' plane has crashed in the city of Santos/SP. According to Globo News he has passed.

Unbelievable news. RIP Eduardo.

7 passengers on board have passed, including Eduardo Campos and his staff. Unbelievable. :(

Wow, unbelievable. RIP.

WTF? How?! Are we sure?

The Bovespa exchange fell over 2% when the news came out on Campos' death.  It has mostly recovered.  I wonder Neves will now run?

Well, Neves was always running... Campos was the candidate of the PSB. I wonder if Marina will become their candidate now.

Under federal law, the PSB and its colligation (formed by the PSB, the PPS and 4 minor parties) has 10 days to appoint a new presidential candidate. Marina Silva should be the favorite, but it's important to remember she's not trully from the PSB - she only joined the PSB because her party didn't get registration in time for this election.

If not her, the PSB could perhaps look into they bench in Congress. Perhaps an outsider, as Belo Horizonte's Mayor Marcio Lacerda. Perhaps Roberto Freire, PPS' president. Or perhaps they'll simply appoint nobody.

It's important to remember the PSB suffered a break-up a few months ago as some of its members (specially the Gomes brothers) wanted to stay as allies of the PT and were against Campos' candidacy. Some of those left the PSB and founded the pro-PT PROS, but a few of those remained in the PSB.

The death of Eduardo Campos was terribly shocking. He was a politician with a great potential and also a good record in office. I wasn't intending to vote on him but even so I was pretty sad to watch the news calling him dead. He was only 49, he has 5 children and that was for me the worst part of it. His family and Brazil didn't deserve such terrible situation... Now, regarding to political speculations, I believe that now is a very hard moment to think politically and surely PSB and their coalition will wait some days until they fully announce what they will do...

That was a big tragedy, because seven human lives were lost and because Eduardo Campos was young (49 years old) and he could be a strong candidate in 2018 or 2022.

However, this tragedy has few impact in the 2014 election. The two major candidates are Dilma Roussef and Aécio Neves, Eduardo Campos had only 10%. Since this forum is American, and so, many Americans read this forum, the best way to explain Campos' role in the 2014 presidential election is comparing him to John Anderson in the USA in 1980.


Problably, the candidate of the PSB coalition will be Marina Silva. It is possible for the coalition to choose another name, there is a 10 day deadline. But Marina Silva is the most famous one. She was candidate in 2010. She can have more votes than Eduardo Campos would have. The national commotion after the tragedy can help her.

However, I still think that the winner will be Dilma Roussef or Aécio Neves.

Campos was re-elected with something upwards of 80% of the vote in 2010, right? Around 85% or so. I mean, he was third, but who knows how strongly Marina will perform. I mean she could end up like Ciro in 2002; more hype than a true force in the end. But she might squeak into the second round, and who knows what would happen then...

Marina Silva scares BOTH Dilma Rousseff and Aecio Neves. While there's no polling yet, I'd expect Marina Silva to be on an statistical tie with Aecio Neves, around 18% each, while Dilma gets around 35%. In fact, the tragedy could bring an even bigger bounce in favor of Marina, and even if Neves has more TV time and money on hand to spend, the national mood could make Marina the front-runner for the second spot in the runoff.

If Marina takes Campos's place, well... For Aecio Neves, this makes getting into the runoff quite tougher. If he makes the runoff, PSB's support could end up being a huge bun, although I don't think Marina would formally endorse him. Meanwhile, for Dilma, this basically kills any hope she had of getting a 1st round win, and potentially makes the runoff even more difficult. If Marina gets into the runoff, basically all votes for Neves will quickly migrate to Marina, and when you consider the votes for Reverend Everaldo and Eduardo Jorge, that should also migrate to Marina, those votes combined should probably be enough to defeat Dilma.

It's highly likely Marina Silva will head the ticket, according to most well informed sources. The problem is, Marina still displeases many on the PSB and would probably have to agree to endorse and campaign for candidates on statewide races she dislikes - as Geraldo Alckmin's reelection campaign in São Paulo and Lindberg Farias' campaign in Rio de Janeiro. It's important to remember that the PSB's national chairman, Marcio França, is running for Vice Governor on Geraldo Alckmin's ticket, and his opinion will be very important on this process.

If Marina Silva is indeed the candidate, it's speculated that Roberto Freire will be their VP candidate.

Campos was reelected governor of Pernambuco in 2010 with 80% of the vote in the first round. He was a very popular governor, but he was also helped because Lula and Dilma were backing him, and Lula was also very popular at that time.
The latest polls in 2014 in the state of Pernambuco showed a tie between Eduardo Campos and Dilma Roussef, both having ~40%. In the other Northeastern states, Dilma was leading with 50% and Campos had between 6% and 10%.
He would end like Ciro Gomes in 1998 and 2002. I don't know about Marina, because she is not a state politician, she is a national politician.

I agree with most what you wrote except about Marina Silva having all the Aécio Neves votes in the runoff. The last poll considering a runoff scenario between Dilma Roussef and Marina Silva took place in February 2014, and in this poll, 57% of the Aécio voters would vote for Marina Silva in thr runoff, 25% would vote for Dilma Roussef, 15% would not vote and 2% didn't know. In that poll, considering all voters, Dilma was leading against Marina 50%/35%. However, it was a much better time for Dilma that month. Against Aécio, she was leading 54%/27%.
http://media.folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2014/02/24/intencao-de-voto-presidente-2014.pdf

Considering that the "agrobusiness" belongs to the Aécio supporting base, I really doubt that this sector would back an environmentalist. And I believe that some of the 19% that voted for Marina in 2010 casted a protest vote. They did not imagine her sitting on the president chair.


Eduardo Campos funeral will take place on Saturday. PSB will choose its candidate only after that.

It's now nearly certain Marina Silva will head the ticket. Congressman Beto Albuquerque (PSB-RS), who was running for the Senate, will probably be her running mate.

Other important names are the Government Agenda Coordinator, Maurício Rands, the former National Integration Minister, Fernando Bezerra, and Congressman Júlio Salgado. Rands was, however, a member of PT until October of last year, Bezerra was a member of Dilma's Government and Salgado is not close to Marina, although very critical of President Lula.

There are rumors that Eduardo's widow Renata or even Eduardo's brother were considering to run as well, but those would be highly unlikely names...

What is certain is that the Vice Presidential candidate will be a member of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB).

Beto is a Campos' loyalist. He was 2nd best-voted congressman in RS and served as Infrastructure Secretary at Genro's government. He left job to help Campos. He would be good to attract sympathy votes after he gets national electorate to know his personal drama. His son Pietro died in 2009, after sufering a hard kind of leukaemia where all of solutions were tested, but all failed because lack of compatible donators.

First poll after the accident

Dilma Roussef 36%
Marina Silva 21%
Aécio Neves 20%
Pastor Everaldo 3%
Others 2%
None 8%
Not decided 9%


Runoff

Marina Silva 47%
Dilma Roussef 43%

Dilma Roussef 47%
Aécio Neves 39%


Rating of Dilma Roussef administration

Good/Very good 38%
Regular 38%
Bad/Very bad 23%

RIP Campos.

...

A Rousseff vs. Silva runoff would be great.

Interesting!

I am just wondering what kind off government Marina would name? I mean the parties supporting her have like maximum 10% in the parliament?!

()

Good question. Maybe, even herself doesn't know yet. The difference between Marina Silva and Eduardo Campos is that Eduardo Campos was really the center, he was on the right of Dilma and on the left of Aécio. Marina Silva is the center because she is the average of the extremes. She has supporters on the left of Dilma and on the right of Aécio.

Usually, supporting coalitions of presidential candidates in Brazil do not have 50% of the legislative. After elected, they have to negotiate a base with other parties, offering some ministries and government offices.

Well, the details of the poll

Runoff scenario 1

All
Dilma 47%, Aécio 39%

Gender
Male: Dilma 48%, Aécio 40%
Female: Dilma 47%, Aécio 38%

Age
16-24: Dilma 45%, Aécio 44%
25-34: Dilma 47%, Aécio 39%
35-44: Dilma 47%, Aécio 38%
45-59: Dilma 49%, Aécio 39%
60-: Dilma 48%, Aécio 37%

Education Level
Elementary: Dilma 57%, Aécio 31%
High School: Dilma 46%, Aécio 42%
College: Dilma 30%, Aécio 53%

Household Income
Less than 2 minimum wages: Dilma 57%, Aécio 31%
Between 2 and 5 minimum wages: Dilma 42%, Aécio 45%
Between 5 and 10 minimum wages: Dilma 35%, Aécio 51%
More than 10 minimum wages: Dilma 26%, Aécio 60%
Minimum wage in Brazil = US$305 monthly

Region
Southeast: Dilma 38%, Aécio 45%
South: Dilma 42%, Aécio 44%
Northeast: Dilma 62%, Aécio 27%
Center-West: Dilma 39%, Aécio 50%
North: Dilma 63%, Aécio 27%

Location
Metropolitan Area: Dilma 42%, Aécio 41%
Countryside: Dilma 51%, Aécio 38%

City size
Less than 50k inhabitants: Dilma 57%, Aécio 32%
Between 50k and 200k inhabitants: Dilma 46%, Aécio 41%
Between 200k and 500k inhabitants: Dilma 42%, Aécio 44%
More than 500k inhabitants: Dilma 40%, Aécio 43%

Party identification
PT: Dilma 86%, Aécio 10%
PSDB: Dilma 13%, Aécio 81%
None: Dilma 42%, Aécio 40%

View on Dilma Administration
Good/Very good: Dilma 84%, Aécio 10%
Regular: Dilma 38%, Aécio 46%
Bad/Very bad: Dilma 4%, Aécio 76%

Vote in the first round
Marina Silva: Dilma 28%, Aécio 54%

Religion
Catholic: Dilma 50%, Aécio 38%
Petencostal Evangelic: Dilma 45%, Aécio 41%
Non-petencostal Evangelic: Dilma 42%, Aécio 47%
Kardecist: Dilma 35%, Aécio 49%
No religion: Dilma 46%, Aécio 35%

Race
White: Dilma 40%, Aécio 46%
"Pardo" (half white, half black): Dilma 52%, Aécio 35%
Black: Dilma 54%, Aécio 32%
Asian: Dilma 46%, Aécio 42%
Native: Dilma 55%, Aécio 27%


In summary: comparing to the poll of July, Dilma Roussef widened the gap from four to eight points by growing in the groups where she was already stronger - low income and Northeast. So, income and regional polarization increased.

Runoff scenario 2

All
Dilma 43%, Marina 47%

Gender
Male: Dilma 45%, Marina 46%
Female: Dilma 42%, Marina 48%

Age
16-24: Dilma 38%, Marina 57%
25-34: Dilma 40%, Marina 52%
35-44: Dilma 42%, Marina 48%
45-59: Dilma 46%, Marina 43%
60-: Dilma 49%, Marina 36%

Education Level
Elementary: Dilma 55%, Marina 34%
High School: Dilma 40%, Marina 53%
College: Dilma 24%, Marina 65%

Household Income
Less than 2 minimum wages: Dilma 52%, Marina 38%
Between 2 and 5 minimum wages: Dilma 39%, Marina 53%
Between 5 and 10 minimum wages: Dilma 29%, Marina 62%
More than 10 minimum wages: Dilma 21%, Marina 64%
Minimum wage in Brazil = US$305 monthly

Region
Southeast: Dilma 36%, Marina 53%
South: Dilma 40%, Marina 47%
Northeast: Dilma 54%, Marina 38%
Center-West: Dilma 33%, Marina 60%
North: Dilma 59%, Marina 34%

Location
Metropolitan Area: Dilma 38%, Marina 51%
Countryside: Dilma 46%, Marina 44%

City size
Less than 50k inhabitants: Dilma 54%, Marina 38%
Between 50k and 200k inhabitants: Dilma 41%, Marina 48%
Between 200k and 500k inhabitants: Dilma 38%, Marina 51%
More than 500k inhabitants: Dilma 35%, Marina 55%

Party identification
PT: Dilma 79%, Marina 19%
PSDB: Dilma 16%, Marina 75%
None: Dilma 38%, Marina 50%

View on Dilma Administration
Good/Very good: Dilma 79%, Marina 16%
Regular: Dilma 33%, Marina 57%
Bad/Very bad: Dilma 2%, Marina 84%

Vote in the first round
Aécio Neves: Dilma 19%, Marina 70%

Religion
Catholic: Dilma 48%, Marina 42%
Petencostal Evangelic: Dilma 38%, Marina 54%
Non-petencostal Evangelic: Dilma 38%, Marina 58%
Kardecist: Dilma 34%, Marina 60%
No religion: Dilma 36%, Marina 51%

Race
White: Dilma 37%, Marina 52%
"Pardo" (half white, half black): Dilma 47%, Marina 44%
Black: Dilma 48%, Marina 43%
Asian: Dilma 51%, Marina 41%
Native: Dilma 49%, Marina 41%

How convenient! A candidate dies in shady circumstrances and is replaced by someone polling better. That's fishy.

Except no one powerful really benefits from Silva's rise. In fact, most of Campos' original backers are probably anxious about it.

I think it's more about getting Rouseff out of office, rather than putting Silva in.

Rep. Beto Albuquerque (PSB-RS) has been chosen as the running mate. Nice pick.

Apart from the background stuff Rod told us, what is Beto like policy wise?

In February 2014, the last polls considering scenario with Eduardo Campos and scenario with Marina Silva candidate showed that Marina Silva was polling better than Eduardo Campos. However, PSB is Campos' party. Marina Silva is in the PSB only because she could not register her new party in the electoral justice in the deadline. Winning 2014 was not a part of Campos' plan. He was relatively young. He was planning to run this year in order to become known by the of the Brazilian electorate, and then, run in 2018 trying to win.

Parties do not need to choose the candidate who is polling better. In the end of 2013, Lula was polling better than Dilma in PT, but Lula doesn't want to be presidente again. José Serra was polling better than Aécio Neves in PSDB, but José Serra is too old.

A new pack of IBOPE polls will be released next Tuesday, so we'll have the chance to see whether the trends observed by Datafolha will keep up, and if the first days of TV and radio campaign will have relevant impact.

So what are Silva's positions? Is she to the left or right of Dilma?

'Yes' is the answer to this question, as I understand it.

To the right, specially on social issues.

She is on the right of Dilma on economic issues too. The economists in Dilma administration are keynesian. The economists backing Marina Silva are monetarist.

Considering social issues, Marina Silva is petencostal evangelic and she has some conservative views about theory of evolution, abortion and gay marriage, but she mentions these views only when she is asked. Religion is not the most important issue of her politics.
Dilma Roussef is problably agnostic, but she says she is catholic. She is neither liberal nor conservative on social issues. She doesn't care. But her policies are more social conservative than Lula's ones, because the number of religious fundamentalists in the Congress increased, and she wants to avoid problems with these Congressmen.

Despite the views of Marina Silva on social and economic issues, some leftists like her because of her views on environment.

Silva did leave the Workers' Party because it had moved too far to the center though...

No.

Left-wing candidate Luciana Genro left the Workers Party because it had moved too far to the center.

Marina Silva left the Workers Party because Lula wanted to build hidroelectric power plants in the Amazon Forest, and as the Minister of Environment, Marina Silva was against it. But on other issues, Marina Silva is on the right, not on the left of the Workers Party.

According to internals Marina has now left Aecio Neves behind and in some polls is already statistically tied to President Rousseff.

Tactical voting will end up dooming Neves, probably. And in a runoff, Marina would be the favorite today. Who'd have thought?

Does that make her a murder suspect at all ?

I always thought François Hollande got away too easily for planting Diallo in DSK's room...

Datafolha will release a new poll next week as well, so we'll have some solid info in a few days.

This new poll will also show if  the first TV debate (next Tuesday) had any effect.

I'm a Dilma's supporter and I'm calm about Marina's surge. She'll self-implode at some moment. She had first crisis with PSB's cupula as Carlos Siqueira, Secretary-General of PSB, resigned as campaign manager. He'll be replaced by Luiza Erundina, although this will be only symbolic, as Erundina has some criticism of Marina's critic of traditional politics and her business allies. Marina had promised to give autonomy to Central Bank and to end reelection.

I don't know who I will vote for. Neves was my mother's friend (when they worked together in the Belo Horizonte City Hall), I like Marina because she puts the focus on environment protection (as a Greenpeace member and a person concerned about the future of the Amazonas, this is a critical issue for me), I approve of many things Dilma -and Lula before her- has done as President (I support Bolsa Familia, Mais Médicos and, specially, Minha Casa Minha Vida, Luz para Todos and the foreign policy).

So, yes, this is a weird election where I'm more or less "happy" with any candidate. Neves is almost discarded because he's too "moderate hero" for my taste and is the candidate of the right (even if he can't be considered right-wing), Marina has some wacky positions (social issues, mainly) that make me cringe, and Dilma is supported by some parties like PP and PRB that I hate and hasn't fought enough against corruption... So, I think I may end up voting for Eduardo Jorge (PV) or Luciana Genro (PSOL) in the 1st round and then voting for Dilma in the 2nd, but, as I said, that may change. I like Mauro Iasi (PCB) a lot but no way I'm voting for his party :p.

I will vote for Luciana Genro in the first round and for Dilma Roussef in the runoff, no matter if her oponnent is Aécio Neves or Marina Silva.
I agree with RodPresident. Marina Silva will self implode. I think that Aécio Neves will go to the runoff.

For governor of Rio de Janeiro, I will vote for PT candidate Lindberg Farias. For senator, I still don't know if I will vote for Romário or for the PSOL candidate.

Erundina? LOL.

So, it's very possible we vote the same way in the Presidential election :)

I'm not sure Marina will implode. She didn't in 2010, I don't see why she will this time.

I can only vote for President, but if I could cast a ballot for Governor, I'd vote for Pimentel for sure. I wouldn't waste time thinking about my vote for Senator, as Anastasia will win, but I think my vote would vote for the PSTU/PCB/PCO/whatever candidate.

In 2010, Marina hadn't same vetting she's going to get now. She's being attacked by right-wing newspapers, like receiving critics from left. Aecio has 40 days to recover. Water crisis in São Paulo isn't affecting Alckmin because weak opponents, but people in São Paulo can protest voting in Marina (who refused to support PSB's alliance with Alckmin-many say that she wasn't on Campos' flight to not meet him).

Marina is smart and she's wisely flirting with the financial markets and etc. Campos was having fundraising problems and she might solve this. Her main risk is alienating way too many important PSB members and losing vital ground support on many important states, like São Paulo.

Aecio was running a very bland campaign and will have to do something quickly. He's been running good TV ads IMO, but if he doesn't escalate the tone a little bit it may be irrelevant in the end. His advantage is having many unfaithful party cells on his side, like the PP in Rio Grande do Sul and the PDT in Mato Grosso. Those could be even more helpful if there's a runoff.

Oh, and I don't rule out some sort of a shy toucan effect. It has happened before.

BTW, October 5th I'll be voting those:

President: Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG)/Aloysio Nunes (PSDB-SP)
Governor: Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB-SP)/Marcio França (PSB-SP)
Senator: José Serra (PSDB-SP)
Representative: Carlos Sampaio (PSDB-SP)
State Rep.: Fernando Capez (PSDB-SP)

A full house of toucans :P

Differences between 2010 and 2014

> In 2010, Marina Silva increased from 10% to 19% in the last two weeks of the campaign. She was only the stone, not the glass. She did not have enough time to be criticized. Now, she will receive criticism from both Dilma and Aécio campaign.
> In 2010, Marina Silva had centrist supporters, but she had also supporters on the left of Dilma and on the right of José Serra. In the last four years, her left-wing base became disapointed. In 2014, there is clear evidence that she is the second candidate of the right. Her government agenda was prepared by monetarist economists.
> Large media groups like Globo, Abril and Estadão endorsed Marina Silva candidature after Campos' death because they wanted someone to have enough votes in order to avoid Dilma's victory in the first round. But they didn't want Marina ahead of Aécio, because they prefer Aécio. So, the media that started a positive coverage about Marina will start a negative coverage if Marina became a threat to Aécio.

As I said before, most of the support for Marina Silva in 2014 come from the right. I heard some people saying that they will vote for Marina, not for Aécio, because she has bigger probability to defeat Dilma in the second round than Aécio has. When they perceive that Marina Silva will not have bigger probability to defeat Dilma in the second round, they will go back to Aécio. It is like the Keynesian beauty contest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest

Today, when I was walking on the street going to have lunch, I was stopped and interviewed by an electoral poll. It was the IBPS institute, not so big like the most famous ones, Ibope and Datafolha. It was the first time in my life I was interviewed. The probability is very small.

First, the interviewer asked me in which candidate I would vote for president, governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, and senator of the state of Rio de Janeiro, without showing the list with the names of the candidates. Then, he asked the same questions, but in this time, showing the list with the names of the candidates. Of course, I gave the same answers. After that, he asked in which candidates I would never vote for ("rejeição"). Then, he asked in which candidate I would vote for deputy in the legislative assembly of Rio de Janeiro and for deputy in the National Congress. In the end, he asked my household income and my religion.

There are many black ops polls going on daily, and since those are not released to the public, they don't have to be registered. Those are essential for House candidates and their parties. Usually parties know pretty early how big their congressional bench will be and who will be there thanks to those polls. Plus, they help the daily tracking all parties do.

According to rumors one of the big pollsters (I'd guess IBOPE) ran a national poll for FEBRABAN (Brazil's powerful banking association). The results were 35% Dilma, 27% Marina and 18% Aécio, and Marina already leading outside the margin of error against Dilma in the runoff (47% x 40%).

As for tracking polls, you'll find tons of supposed leaked numbers around the internet, but most of them are junk. The most reliable ones, according to sources, show numbers similar to those above.

With the new IBOPE being released Tuesday and the new Datafolha around Friday, we'll know better soon.

I would be posting some of my own analysis during this election cycle, but I would like to wait until a new Datafolha and this IBOPE polls that will be made (Although I don't trust IBOPE and don't really believe that they are actually reliable anyway). Now those are going to be my votes:

President: Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG)/ Senator Aloysio Nunes (PSDB-SP)
Governor: Governor Luiz Fernando "Pezao" (PMDB-RJ)
Senator: Fmr. Mayor César Maia (DEM-RJ)
Representative: Otávio Leite (PSDB-RJ)
State Representative: Luiz Paulo (PSDB-RJ)

It's very likely that I will get a meeting with Otávio Leite =)

I like this. And Serra is running for Senate? Will that man just retire?

He may even win this time!! He's running against Suplicy and the last poll indicattes he's 3 points ahead...

Eduardo Suplicy did the ice bucket challenge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYRpIkpHVHY

Gilberto Kassab too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDxGNaTIqPw

José Serra is the only candidate to senator of the state of São Paulo who did not accept the ice bucket challenge yet

Alckmin tried hard to negotiate this Senate run spot, but the most attractive partner (Gilberto Kassab and his PSD) decided to go with Paulo Skaf. Celso Russomano (PRB) was also considered but in the end the PSDB didn't have to surrender this spot to get PRB's support. This way, Serra ended up being a natural name for the PSDB, as he could well flip a Senate seat that has been red for the last 24 years.

Oh, and what about Paulo Maluf's fake ice bucket challenge? :P

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This is ridiculous. Unless he talked about ALS in Brazil...

Beto Albuquerque, Marina's running-mate will be replaced in Rio Grande do Sul's Senate dispute by incumbent Pedro Simon who'll run for 5th senate term. He planned to retire, but he was seen as only electable name.

IBOPE numbers are out:

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Aecio is probably dead and Dilma is now in huge trouble.

Margin of error: 2%

Several important state numbers are out:

São Paulo:

Governor:

Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) – 50%
Paulo Skaf (PMDB) – 20%
Alexandre Padilha (PT) – 5%
Gilberto Natalini (PV) – 1%
Raimundo Sena (PCO) – 1%
Laércio Benko (PHS) – 1%
Wagner Farias (PCB) – 0%
Gilberto Maringoni (PSOL) – 0%
Walter Ciglioni (PRTB) – 0%
Null: 10%
Undecided: 11%

Alckmin wins runoff against Skaf 55% x 28%, 9% undecided.

Senator:

José Serra (PSDB) - 33% das intenções de voto
Eduardo Suplicy (PT) - 24%
Gilberto Kassab (PSD) - 7%
Ana Luiza (PSTU) - 2%
Marlene Campos Machado (PTB) - 1%
Fernando Lucas (PRP) - 1%
Kaka Wera (PV) - 1%
Genildo Moreira (PSB) – 1%
Edmilson Costa (PCB) - 0%
Senador Fláquer (PRTB) – 0%
Juraci Garcia (PCO) – 0%
Null - 12%
Undecided - 18%

Rio de Janeiro:

Governor:

Anthony Garotinho (PR) – 28%
Luiz Fernando Pezão (PMDB) –  18%
Marcelo Crivella (PRB) -  16%
Lindberg Farias (PT) –  12%
Tarcísio Motta (PSOL) – 3%
Dayse Oliveira (PSTU) – 1%
Ney Nunes (PCB)  - 1%
Null – 15%
Undecided -  6%

Garotinho leads runoff against Crivella 34% x 33%, leads against Pezão 38% x 31%, leads against Farias 37% x 29%. All scenarios have at least 25% of null votes.

Senator:

Romário (PSB) – 37%
Cesar Maia (DEM) – 22%
Eduardo Serra (PCB) – 5%
Carlos Lupi (PDT) – 3%
Pedro Rosa (PSOL) – 2%
Liliam Sá (PROS) – 2%
Diplomata Sebastião Neves (PRB) – 1%
Heitor Fernandes (PSTU) – 1%
Null – 17%
Undecided - 10%

Minas Gerais:

Governor:

Fernando Pimentel (PT) – 37%
Pimenta da Veiga (PSDB) – 23%
Tarcísio Delgado (PSB) – 3%
Cleide Donária (PCO) – 1%
Eduardo Ferreira (PSDC) – 1%
Fidélis (PSOL) – 1%
Professor Túlio Lopes (PCB) – 1%
Null: 11%
Undecided: 22%

Pimentel leads runoff against da Veiga 42% x 26%, 21% undecided.

Senator:

Antonio Anastasia (PSDB) - 45%
Josué Alencar (PMDB) - 10%
Margarida (PSB) - 2%
Edilson Nascimento (PTdoB) - 1%
Geraldo Batata (PSTU) - 1%
Graça (PCO) - 1%
Pablo Lima (PCB) - 1%
Tarcísio (PSDC) - 1%
Null - 13%
Undecided - 26%

Federal District:

Governor:

- José Roberto Arruda (PR): 37%
- Agnelo Queiroz (PT): 16%
- Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB): 16%
- Toninho do PSOL (PSOL): 4%
- Luiz Pitiman (PSDB): 3%
- Perci Marrara (PCO): 0%
- Null: 7%
- Undecided: 17%

Arruda leads runoff against Queiroz 45% x 23%, 19% undecided, leads Rollemberg 39% x 30%, 22% undecided.

Senator:

- Reguffe (PDT): 29%
- Magela (PT): 16%
- Gim Argello (PTB): 13%
- Aldemário (PSOL): 1%
- Expedito Mendonça (PCO): 1%
- Robson (PSTU): 1%
- Sandra Quezado (PSDB): 2%
- Jamil Magari (PCB): 0%
- Null: 9%
- Undecided: 28%

Pernambuco:

Governor:

Armando Monteiro (PTB): 38%
Paulo Câmara (PSB): 29%
Jair Pedro (PSTU): 1%
Miguel Anacleto (PCB): 1%
Pantaleão (PCO): 1%
Zé Gomes (PSOL): 1%
Null: 13%
Undecided: 16 %

No runoff simulation.

Senator:

João Paulo (PT) - 35%
Fernando Bezerra Coelho (PSB) - 22%
Simone Fontana (PSTU) - 2%
Albanise Pires (PSOL) - 1%
Oxis (PCB) - 1%
Null - 15%
Undecided - 24%

Paraná:

Governor:

Beto Richa (PSDB) – 43%
Requião (PMDB) – 26%
Gleisi Hoffmann (PT) –14%
Tulio Bandeira (PTC) – 1%
Outros com menos de 1% - 1%
Null - 8%
Undecided - 7%

No runoff simulation.

Senator:

Alvaro Dias (PSDB) – 64%
Ricardo Gomyde (PC do B) – 4%
Marcelo Almeida (PMDB) – 2%
Luiz Barbara (PTC) – 1%
Professor Piva (PSOL) – 1%
Outros com menos de 1% - 1%
Null - 12%
Undecided - 15%

First debate of the presidential candidates on TV

NOW

Gilberto Kassab is running against Serra!? And good to see Beto Richa in the lead; I remember being told he'd have a hard time against Hoffmann, which isn't the case. I think he's a strong contender for the nomination in 2018/2022.

Many expected Hoffmann would be a strong candidate because she'd have strong Lula/Dilma support. The problem is that Paraná may well be Brazil's most conservative and anti-PT state. Also, Richa's ratings are quite high. The PT wanted to have stronger footing in Paraná, but in the end this may end up backfiring and could even hurt Dilma in a state with nearly 8 million voters.

I do think Richa could be a viable name for 2018/2022, but right now Alckmin is clearly the pole-sitter - specially if he crushes his opposition in São Paulo as it looks like right now. Alckmin is already known nationally, has the support of many within the higher ranks of the PSDB, and is a strong fundraiser (important if private funding is kept until 2018). In fact, Alckmin knows all this very well and due to this is not really putting much effort on Neves' campaign. Don't forget he's working with Marina's PSB in São Paulo.

Richa could be viable, but he'd have a hard time raising his name recognition around the country. He's a complete unknown outside Paraná. This is a problem Aécio is having right now, he's still unknown to about 1/4 of Brazil.

Now an Alckmin-Richa ticket would be sweet, and probably excellent to unify a pparty that's been hurt way too much by internal fighting.

What a horrible debate!

Only the Green Party candidate Eduardo Jorge is a little bit better

Eduardo Jorge's rhetorics are more left-wing aggressive than Luciana Genro. And he served as secretary in Serra-Kassab government in São Paulo. And running-mate Célia Sacramento is ACM Neto's deputy mayor.

Even on a topic which I though that Luciana Genro could have a good performance, about the conflict between landowners and native Brazilians, she was unable to offer a convincing answer

The mediators are more rightist than the right-wing candidates

Paraná's PT had many problems. A Hoffmann's secretary was jailed for paedophilia and congressman André Vargas' (former PT) dealings with lobbysts went very bad. Curitiba's mayor Gustavo Fruet  (PDT), a Gleisi's ally isn't at his best. And Richa helped Requião some way by trying to get PMDB support anyway. This energized Requião group to fight back after almost losing 2010 senatorial election. And Requião runs to Gleisi's left. He's a sui generis PMDB as being most progressive Senator. And this IBOPE poll can't be trusted.

Recent polls in some big states

São Paulo
Dilma 23%, Marina 35%, Aécio 19%

Rio de Janeiro
Dilma 38%, Marina 30%, Aécio 11%

Minas Gerais
Dilma 31%, Marina 20%, Aécio 34%

Bahia
Dilma 47%, Marina 23%, Aécio 10%

Pernambuco
Dilma 37%, Marina 41%, Aécio 3%

Paraná
Dilma 28%, Marina 29%, Aécio 24%

Distrito Federal
Dilma 20%, Marina 35%, Aécio 18%


It is unbeliaveble that the PSDB candidate has only 19% in São Paulo. I think Aécio vote will increase after the end of the peak of the Marina wave. In Pernambuco, Marina could hold all Eduardo Campos' votes.

Actually it doesn't surprise me because the state PSDB has completely thrown Neves under the bus. After Serra's last big loss (2012), Alckmin has completely taken over PSDB's leadership in São Paulo. As I said before, his goal now is sealing his reelection and setting up his 2018 presidential run. Just yesterday Alckmin was running ads with Marina's running mate endorsing him. Alckmin won't even be shy about endorsing a Marina Silva-Geraldo Alckmin vote, just like many PSDB cells in Minas Gerais ran the absurd "Lula-Aécio" double back in 2006, something that really hurt Alckmin's presidential campaign that year.

Tactical vote is also a relevant factor. With new polls showing Marina gaining, many wealthier and middle-class voters that would normally vote PSDB for president will vote Marina-Alckmin. For about 30% of São Paulo, taking the PT out of the federal government is more important than electing someone from the PSDB.

Finally, many on the PSDB's national committee also believe now that endorsing Marina in a runoff and being part of an eventual Marina Silva government coalition wouldn't be that bad. In fact, even leading figures like FHC seem to flirt with this idea. Not to mention that in a runoff Marina could be very useful for the PSDB if she also endorses some government candidates. The PSDB is well placed in some important states. They have a strong chance of retaining São Paulo, Paraná, Goiás and Pará, could still rebound in Minas Gerais, and could perhaps bring new states into play, as Paraíba and Santa Catarina. Also, PSDB allies are leading in important places, such as Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul. All in, there's a growing consensus that it would be better to spend resources on competitive state races, and that helping Marina Silva to (finally) defeat their nemesis wouldn't be such a bad outcome. 2016 and 2018 are just around the corner :P and Marina has promised she won't run for reelection if elected :P

Why are Brazilians apparently so keen on naming people by their first name only ? Lack of variety in family names ? But surely Rousseff is remarkable enough to stand out ? Is it Iceland in disguise ?

And since Silva's candidacy following Campos' death, several of you have predicted the end of her fad : are you sure it will end, and when would you estimate it will ?

Interesting question. Lack of variety is a factor, the most frequent family names are from a small bunch of portuguese Jews that were forced to convert to Catholicism and later emigrated to Brazil. Also, it's said that Brazil's sad past of slavery is a cause of this, because slaves had their family names ignored by the land owners.

And women in politics are still pretty rare in Brazil, so it's actually easy to cala them by first name.

I don't think it will... Aecio is a very weak candidate and, IMHO, she's not as weak as people are predicting here. She had a good debate performance and the "attacks" on her are a bit ridiculous so far... The media keeps talking about the plane that killed Campos.

Adding further explanation for the question...

Brazilians like to refer to people using only one name. It makes our conversation easier. Journalists like it too, because writing only one name is better to use the space in the newspaper.
People can be called by the first name, by the last name, by a nickname or by an acronym. The decision of which name to use is spontaneous.

Presidents called by their first name: Getúlio Vargas is Getúlio, Jânio Quadros is Jânio, Tancredo Neves is Tancredo, Itamar Franco is Itamar and Dilma Roussef is Dilma

Presidents called by their last name: All generals of the military dictatorship - Humberto Castelo Branco is Castelo Branco, Artur da Costa e Silva is Costa e Silva, Emílio Gastarrazu Médici is Médici, Ernesto Geisel is Geisel and João Batista Figueiredo is Figueiredo. Two presidents after the redemocratization were called by their last names. José Sarney is Sarney. Fernando Collor de Melo is Collor.

Presidents called by nicknames: João Goulart is Jango, Luís Inácio da Silva is Lula

Presidents called by acronym: Juscelino Kubitschek is JK, Fernando Henrique Cardoso is FHC


Among the candidates in 2014, Dilma Roussef is Dilma, Marina Silva is Marina, Aécio Neves is Aécio and we don't know if Eduardo Campos would be Eduardo or Campos


Among the most important Brazilian politicians nowadays, the candidate for senator from the state of São Paulo José Serra is Serra, the governor of São Paulo Geraldo Alckmin is Alckmin, the mayor of São Paulo Fernando Haddad is Haddad, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes is Paes and the former governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro Sérgio Cabral is Cabral. So, all of them are called by their last names. On the other side, former governor of Rio de Janeiro and candidate in this election Anthony Garotinho is known as his nickname Garotinho. The governor of Rio de Janeiro and candidate to reelection Luiz Fernando de Souza is known by his nickname Pezão (Big Foot in Portuguese).
Senator Eduardo Suplicy is Suplicy. His former wife, former mayor of São Paulo and Minister of Culture Marta Suplicy is Marta.

Usually, when the first name is too ordinary, like José or Fernando, the politician is called by the last name. When the last name is too ordinary, like Silva, the politician is called by the first name.

Datafolha August 28th and 29th

First Round
Dilma Roussef 34%
Marina Silva 34%
Aécio Neves 15%
Pastor Everaldo 2%
Others 1%
None 8%
Doesn't know 9%

Runoff

Marina Silva 50%
Dilma Roussef 40%

Dilma Roussef 48%
Aécio Neves 40%


Dilma's Administration

Good/Very good 35%
Regular 39%
Bad/Very bad 26%

Thank you very much for your input (and the others too), but that leave me with other questions (I hope I'm not hijacking the thread too much, it also helps me following this election better).

It seems to me from what you state that women are quite more likely to be referred to by their first names than men, in general, or is it just the examples you took ? I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case, it would be a classic case of patriarchal phallocratic paternalism. We also get it : one of the few recent French politicians referred to by their first name is Ségolène Royal.

Also, the thing about nicknames seems to go far, and even so far as to stick to Presidents even when elected. This is completely and utterly unimaginable in France and most of the dull European world I'm familiar with. Once again, where does it stem from ? Slaves that only got a nickname as an identity ?

To tie up loose ends, it seems from the latest poll you just posted that Campos is a goner, and Dilma can begin to seriously worry...

Marina is not losing unless she makes a big mistake. In fact she could even get a 1st round win if Neves keeps bleeding votes.

I agree with you. Almost all the Brazilian female politicians are referred by their first names. I think this is a case of patriarchal phallocratic paternalism.
Although two women are leading the presidential race, only 10% of the deputies and senators in Brazil are female. This is one of the lowest rates in the world.

Nickname is not only a Brazilian phenomenon. They existed in Russia too. Lenin and Stalin were nicknames.

It is really a mistery how Marina's cabinet would look like. PSDB will be in her cabinet. Maybe, some members of the PT too.
Marina Silva is different of other PT members who left the party. Many of them became Strong enemies of PT, in the left and in the right. Heloísa Helena, Babá, Luciana Genro and Plínio Sampaio joined the leftist PSOL and according to them, the PT looks like the conservative parties, all the parties are bad and only PSOL is good. Fernando Gabeira and Soninha Francine became allies of the PSDB and they say that the PT is corrupt.
These stories didn't happen with Marina Silva. She doesn't consider PT an enemy. She considers only Dilma Roussef an enemy. And Dilma Roussef is not relevant in the history of PT. She joined the PT only in 2001. Marina Silva kept ties with some PT members.
When she left the Ministry of Environment in 2008, she didn't say that Lula's administration was bad. She recognized the sucess of Lula in reducing the poverty, but showed disagreement with Lula's plan to build ungreen hidroelectric power plants in the Amazon Forest. This plan had Dilma Roussef as the main supporter.
In 2012, Marina Silva backed some PT candidates in the municipal elections. She supported Marcio Pochmann in the election for mayor of Campinas.
Of course, in the end of 2013, when she decided to be the running mate of Eduardo Campos, and since August 13th 2014, when she became the candidate, Marina Silva and PT are opponents. Some PT supporters made strong attacks. Some of them were a little stupid. Marina Silva could grow in these last tem days, after receiving attacks from PT and PSDB. Backlash.
Despite the attacks, I think Marina Silva would invite some PT politicians for her cabinet. I don't know if the "Executiva Nacional" from PT would accept.

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Candidate Marina Silva opened a lead of 10 percentage points in a runoff vote over President Dilma Rousseff after Brazil’s economy dipped into recession, according to a Datafolha poll.
Silva has 50 percent of voter support in an Oct. 26 second round vote against the incumbent, who has 40 percent, according to the Aug. 28-29 poll published last night. The former environment minister had an advantage of four percentage points over Rousseff in the previous survey conducted Aug. 14-15, which fell within the plus or minus two percentage point margin of error of the surveys.
Silva, who entered the race Aug. 20, is capitalizing on voter discontent with a shrinking economy and above-target inflation. Yesterday she pledged to slow consumer price increases by giving the central bank formal autonomy and moderating the pace of fiscal spending. Rousseff says her administration has protected workers with rising salaries and near-record low jobless rates.
“The first two, three weeks of the campaign are critical for Marina,” Christopher Garman, deputy head of research at political consulting company Eurasia Group, said by phone. “Voter preference are still in flux. But in the first week she hit a home run.”
The Ibovespa stock exchange index rose 4.9 percent this week as polls also published by Ibope and MDA showed Silva leading the race in the second round.
First Round
Silva and Rousseff would tie in the first round on Oct. 5 with 34 percent of the vote each, followed by Senator Aecio Neves with 15 percent, according to Datafolha, which surveyed 2,874 people. Brazil holds a runoff if the lead candidate fails to garner more votes than all others put together.
Gross domestic product fell 0.6 percent in the second quarter over the previous three months, after contracting a revised 0.2 percent in the first quarter, according to date released yesterday by the national statistics agency. It’s the first time Brazil’s economy contracted for two straight quarters since the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Silva became the candidate for the Brazilian Socialist Party when former Pernambuco Governor Eduardo Campos was killed in an Aug. 13 plane crash.
“Marina is an extremely competitive candidate,” Andre Cesar, director at public policy and business strategy consulting company Prospectiva, said by phone. “It is still too soon to say she is the favorite given there is still a month of campaigning.”
Rousseff’s and Neve’s allies will counter-react to Silva’s surge in polls, Garman said. They will say Silva is a “wild card” that can’t be trusted and is unprepared to lead.

Yesterday, Marina Silva released her government program. It is a social liberal and fiscal conservative one (in Brazil, we say "liberal" to mean "fiscal conservative").

Marina's program supports gay marriage and direct democracy mechanisms. It is easier for her to support gay marriage because, unlike Dilma and Aécio, she has already a reputation of being very religious. Probably, the pentecostal evangelicals will still vote for her.

Her program supports increasing autonomy to the Central Bank, increasing the share of the states and municipalities in the tax revenue and decrease the share of the federal government.

In the first version of the program, she supported the increase of the use of nuclear energy because it is a cleaner source than hidroelectric, gas and coal. But in the evening, the topic concerning nuclear energy was removed from the program.

According to rumors, if Marina wins, PT will move to the opposition. PSDB is expected to join Marina right after the election, if she wins.

I thought her reputation was basically as the exact opposite (fiscal liberal, social conservative)?

She has now flip flopped and said she was never for gay marriage, only civil unions, although this is still a fairly liberal position for Brazil.

As to whether she's an economic leftist, social conservative or an economic rightist, social liberal, it seems to me you could make an argument either way.

She could be on the economic left because she used to be a member of the Workers' Party and she has avoided explicit alliances with the right. She could be an economic conservative but her platform is vaguely rightist (although mostly just vague).

She could be a social conservative because she's an evangelical. She could be a social liberal because she's for civil unions.

Basically, it's not clear what she stands for and that's why I wouldn't support her if I was a Brazilian. If he does get into office, she'll probably be fine but I dislike anyone who knowingly tries to mislead people to get elected (and she's for sure misleading at least half of the people who are going to vote for her).

Right after releasing its latest numbers, Datafolha has already announced a new national poll, that will probably be released Wednesday. Important states will be polled as well.

Oh, and Ibope will also release its newest national numbers this week, probably Wednesday too.

Many believe those new numbers may show Marina already in the high 30s, Dilma stalling, and Neves falling further, probably in the low 10s.

Well, from the beggining of her political career until 2008, when she resigned the Ministry of Environment, her platform was the defense of the environment and the Brazilian natives and workers in the Amazon Forest.
After that, since she announced to run for president in 2010, she became a flip flop. She is very religious and she has a petencostal supporting base, but since many educated young people care on environment, a social liberal platform could atract this audience. But this platform need to be moderate liberal, in order to not alienate the petencostal base.
In Brazil, many poor people are leftist on economic issues and rightist on social issues, and many upper middle class people are rightist on economic issues and leftist on social issues.
In 2014, Marina Silva though that being social liberal and fiscal conservative would take upper middle class votes from Aécio Neves. So, she released a program which included gay marriage. But then, Reverend Silas Malafaia, who has strong influence on many pentecostals wrote four tweets condemning gay marriage. The campaign considered that the petencostals she would loose outnumber the educated middle class young people she could win, and then, she went an step back. Supporting only same-sex civil union is not important, because this kind of union already exists in Brazil, since 2011. It was not a law, but a decision from the Supreme Court.
Only the leftist candidate Luciana Genro and the green candidate Eduardo Jorge have a clear social liberal platform: they support gay marriage, legalization of abortion, legalization of marijuana, anti-homophobia education at schools and abolition of the Military Police. But both candidates are not running to win.
Marina Silva never opposed aliances. When she was elected for the Senate for the first time in 1994, she was backed by the PSDB.


I think that if there is one American politician who can be compared to Marina Silva, he is Ross Perot. Both do not fit very well in the left-right scale. Both ran for president having supporters on the left of the most leftist major party and on the right of the most rightist major party. That's why I though that she would perform worse in the second time...

One of Neves's most important campaign coordinators, Sen. José Agripino (DEM-RN), said today Neves' coalition will endorse Marina in a runoff to avoid "the biggest danger". Neves' HQ has basically thrown the towel and is just working to avoid losing donors and hurting PSDB's viability in 2018 and beyond.

In fact, Aecio is now expected to focus on electing Pimenta da Veiga, PSDB's candidate to the Government of Minas Gerais. National resources will be rerouted to statewide runs. The PSDB could still elected plenty of governors, as I said before, and they're also well placed to have the third largest bench in the Chamber and in the Senate as well. That would make the PSDB a crucial member of Marina's government, with important cabinet posts, and with important positions in both Congress houses - perhaps even the presidency of one of them.

IBOPE numbers for São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. If those numbers are confirmed by the national ones tomorrow, Marina could really start to flirt with a 1st round win.

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New IBOPE numbers are out. Dilma seems to gain steam with undecideds, Marina increases 4%, most of them from Aécio probably. The very low number of undecideds (5%) indicates we're now close to stability.

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Curiously, there's good news here for everyone. For Marina, it shows she's still ahead in a head to head with Dilma, with very few undecideds (6%), so Dilma would have to swing votes from Marina to defeat her in a runoff. For Dilma, her approval ratings have improved, and that may swing undecideds and even some Marina votes to her. For Aécio (and his party), it shows he still has a floor around 15%, making him still a relevant factor through this cycle.

New Datafolha numbers confirm the trends shown by IBOPE. This Datafolha poll had over 10000 voters polled, making this a very reliable poll.

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I'm voting for Eduardo Jorge in the 1st round, and undecided in the 2nd, but definitely lealing Dilma after Marina changed her manifiesto to please Silas Malafaia... But, to be honest, I think it's better for the PT to lose now to Marina Silva than to lose in 2018 against some crook candidate from the right.

A huge corruption scandal in Petrobras has started to leak yesterday. It implicates three governors (including Eduardo Campos), a few ministers and many important legislators. Some PT leaders already believe the scandal will have big political consequences and could seriously damage the party.

Well, well, well...

The "surprise of september" is not a surprise anymore. There is a "big scandal" in every month of september in every even numbered year.
The "dossiê dos aloprados 1.0" didn't work in the election of 2006. The "dossiê dos aloprados 2.0" and "Erenice" didn't work in the election of 2010.

Dilma Roussef can loose the election because of the weak economy. But, probably, this scandal will not hurt her. The bribes in Petrobrás under the diretor Paulo Roberto Costa took place between 2004 and 2012. Dilma Roussef fired Paulo Roberto Costa in 2012.

So what is the deal with gay marriage in Brazil? According to Wikipedia it's already legal.

There is no gay marriage in Brazil. There is civil union right recognized by the Supreme Court in 2011.
The gay activists want the approval of the gay marriage. If it is not possible, they want at least that the civil union to be recognized by law and not only by a decision of the Supreme Court.

Only small candidates like Luciana Genro and Eduardo Jorge support gay marriage. Not only Marina Silva, but also Dilma Roussef and Aécio Neves do not support gay marriage. The gay activists became angry with Marina Silva because she removed gay marriage from her program after the request of Reverend Silas Mafaia, in order to have his endorsement during the campaign. And of course, they hate a candidate backed by a religious who is not only against gay marriage but also consider homossexuality a "bad behavior".

There are a few differences between those scandals you mentioned and this one that's brewing. First, we still don't know everything the whistleblower has told and what he still has to tell (because it's believed he's still telling what he knows to the prosecutors). But what he has told by now is already way more damaging than any other scandal since 2005, a corruption scandal that implicates 3 governors, 2 cabinet members, the President of the Senate, the President of the Chamber, congressmen and the PT's treasurer. If more info is uncovered this week, this may well change fortunes for many. Plus, it's not like this will affect the national race only, this could have ramifications on plenty state races. Finally, remember those scandals you mentioned involved no taxpayers' money, this time about 1,2 billion reais (500 million dollars) supposedly disappeared from Petrobras. It'll depend a lot on what we learn the next week, but this has the potential to change the game, IMO.

Actually according to a regulation issued by the CNJ, register offices are now obliged to celebrate gay marriages. There are some questions about the constitutionality of the regulation, but gay marriage is already a de facto reality in Brazil.

Two important state polls, Ibope, September 6th-8th

State of São Paulo (22% of the Brazilian population)

President
Marina Silva (PSB) 38%
Dilma Roussef (PT) 25%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 15%
(one weak ago: Marina 39%, Dilma 23%, Aécio 17%)

Governor
Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) 48%
Paulo Skaf (PMDB) 18%
Alexandre Padilha (PT) 8%

Senator
José Serra (PSDB) 33%
Eduardo Suplicy (PT) 27%
Gilberto Kassab (PSD) 7%


State of Rio de Janeiro (8% of the Brazilian population)

President
Dilma Roussef (PT) 37%
Marina Silva (PSB) 34%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 9%
(one weak ago: Marina 38%, Dilma 32%, Aécio 11%)

Governor
Anthony Garotinho (PR) 26%
Luís Fernando Pezão (PMDB) 25%
Marcelo Crivella (PRB) 17%
Lindberg Farias (PT) 9%

Senator
Romário (PSB) 44%
César Maia (DEM) 21%


As we can see, Dilma Roussef recovered in the first and in the third most populated state in Brazil. It shows that she will perform better in the next national polls.
However, the PT is not doing well in the gubernatorial elections.

Even after all attacks and negative ads, Marina's position is basically unchanged according to Datafolha. Dilma pulled a bit closer in a runoff but the oscillation was inside the margin of error. As I said before, we're extremely close to stability. I could see Aecio bleeding a bit further (but now more unlikely as Marina is stabilized and there's no real possibility of a 1st round win) and perhaps the Petrobras scandal could hurt Dilma a bit (we should see if that happens next week).

Usually big oscillations in campaigns here in Brazil only happen when TV ads start (when people realize an election is coming) and about one week to go until the election (when the undecideds are forced to decide).

()

I personally hate Ibope's poll, I think they are not as trustable as Datafolha. They poll 8.000 less people than its main competitor and it usually makes more mistakes than the later. However, it's my duty to show the most Recent Ibope Poll:

This one of the biggest lies that has emerged in Brazil. Marina has changed her Governmental Program because that was not her personal belief. Anyone that has been following Marina's speeches, discussions and interviews will see that she NEVER endorsed gay marriage. She has been sometimes a little bit dubious, but her official position is that supports the Civil Union. In some sense, she is supporting Gay Marriage indirectly since the Judiciary System has granted Civil Union the same benefits of a Marriage. Unfortunately, there a bunch of radicals in the LGBT movement that are not capable of reading Marina's program, it offers support for Civil Union, it offers support for developing a law that fights homophobia and it is supportive of measures that make easier adoptions for gay couples. Regarding to Malafaia, despite of all the changes, he even mentioned that the words' essence were the same.

What appeals me the most is that leftist in Brazil are condemning Marina because she is a flip floper while Lula and Dilma are the best on doing this. Dilma was a proud support of legalizing abortion and now she says that she is not. Lula has made a 180o Change since 1989. During 2010, somedays before the 1st Round Election, Dilma's campaign changed her whole Governmental Program to a list of 13 points and not a single discussion has arisen from leftists in Brazils.  (https://www.google.com.br/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEUQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fveja.abril.com.br%2Fnoticia%2Fbrasil%2Fdilma-elabora-terceira-versao-do-programa-de-governo-sem-temas-controversos&ei=CdEVVPnbL8yI8gGny4HoAg&usg=AFQjCNEkCTJov-KxZGepr319AokqkKdONg&sig2=xY5kgxYHwMcJmQtMLIqwkA)

Well, it is not easy to say who is better, Ibope or Datafolha.

Ibope interviews 1200 people at their homes (sometimes, this institute interviews 2000 people). Datafolha interviews 5300 people on the streets (sometimes, this institute interviews 10000 people). A bigger sample is a little bit more precise. But just a little. Professors of Statistics say that when a sample is big enough, it doesn't get much better if it gets bigger. Of course, a 100 people sample would be a very bad one, but 1200 is not.
Datafolha has a bigger sample, but the probability of having a biased sample when the people are interviewed on the streets and not in their homes is bigger.
In 2010, both Ibope and Datafolha predicted in the first round eve that Dilma would have 50% of the valid votes, and actually, she had 46,5%.

It is possible to ready a little bit more about these two polls

Metodology of Ibope: http://pesqele.tse.jus.br/pesqele/publico/pesquisa/Pesquisa/visualizacaoPublica.action?id=25324

Metodology of Datafolha: http://pesqele.tse.jus.br/pesqele/publico/pesquisa/Pesquisa/visualizacaoPublica.action?id=25305

Concerning the criticism on Marina Silva, I agree with this Carta Capital article

http://www.cartacapital.com.br/politica/vamos-elevar-o-nivel-da-discussao-6749.html

Realistically, what major differences would there be between a Marina presidency and a Dilma presidency, assuming that the PSB remains rather small in parliament?

Marina would form a coalition involving the parties she already has on her side + those supporting Aecio. Then she'd go after the PSD and the PDT, two parties that would very likely endorse her as well. That's enough for a small majority in both chambers of Congress, but would make passing constitutional amendments extremely tough. The PROS is a dark horse, they'd probably move to the opposition if Ciro Gomes is not joking about running for President in 2018 (even though he's probably irrelevant nationally right now). Finally, if Marina's "new politics" slogan is for real, she won't compromise with the PR, the PP and specially the PMDB. I feel she believes she can form a coalition that can break down those parties, just like Lula did when faced with the PFL-DEM.

Overall, she'd form more of a center to center-right coalition, perhaps trying to force the PT-PCdoB group to adopt a farther left speech that could annoy middle class voters.

Marina would follow a Macroeconomic Policy much more simillar to those of Mr. Lula's First Term and President FHC's Second Term. We can expect much more fiscal control and higher compromise with inflation control. Moreover, that is something that both Aécio and Marina would probably do, reduce the subsidies given to big companies via BNDES (a public bank), Marina has been highly critical of the billions spent on failed projects and this is clearly something that might change. Marina will also try to deal with politicians in a different way, she might want to change the way that Coalitions are managed in Brazil, instead of just dividing the ministries to each party, she may take a more "European" approach, presenting a coalition governmental plan. Furthermore, she will give a huge push for a Political Reform, something that Dilma says that she is interested on doing but is not. There are many other differences but those are the main ones...

I actually feel polling in Brazil is much better than polling in other countries, specially because public polls must be registered at the TSE and if they don't follow solid standards public release of them is forbidden. Also, polling a country where voting is mandatory is probably a bit easier as abstention is rarely a factor (even though sometimes it has been).

Still, mistakes happen, some of them unforgivable. Back in 2010, Ibope missed by nearly 5% in Dilma's favor in the first round, and Datafolha missed by nearly 5% in Alckmin's favor in the first round. In 2012, Ibope was also fairly inaccurate polling São Paulo in the runoff (not enough to influence the race, but still a considerable miss). The biggest swings tend to happen on the last week of the campaign, when undecideds are forced to decide and when many unsolidified votes change their minds.

Nope.
Dilma Roussef was not a proud supporter of legalization of abortion. She is neither liberal nor conservative in cultural wars, like same-sex marriage, anti-homophobia education, abortion, marijuana and elimination of religious objects in state offices. She doesn't care to these issues. She said she supported legalization of abortion in 2007 only because she was asked. It was just a personal opinion. It was not a part of her political activity.
The Workers Party (PT) moved from a radical left-wing party in 1980 to a social democrat party since 2002 through a slow movement. It was not a flip flop. PT was more moderate in 1989 than it was in 1980, more moderate in 1994 than in 1989, more moderate in 1998 than in 1994, more moderate in 2002 than in 1998...

Rising left wing parties moderating before and in the first years after they gain power is standard operating procedure all over the world, but that's different from what happened in 2010, which indeed seems like major  flip-floppping.

Bovespa is climbing over 2% with rumors that tonight's IBOPE numbers will show Dilma declining.

Edit: Bovespa is now gaining over 3%. Petrobras' stock is gaining around 5%. All state-owned companies are having substantial gains, just like Itaú, one of Brazil's largest private banks, strongly tied to Marina's campaign.

Edit 2: Petrobras is now climbing over 8%. It could be a bubble, but it's strongly believed important info has leaked from IBOPE. Not only it's widely believed Marina will be ahead outside the MOE in a runoff tonight, some also believe this poll will show Aecio regaining ground.

Here's why the market was so excited. Not only Dilma has declined outside the MOE in the first round, Aecio has a 4% gain and is suddenly viable again.

()

Runoff numbers:

Marina 43% (stable)
Dilma 40% (- 2%)

Dilma 44% (- 4%)
Aecio 37% (+ 4%)

Are the "Rejeição" numbers essentially disapproval ratings?

Essentially but not exactly. The question made for rejeição ratings is "which candidate(s) would you never vote for?". This because you could dislike/disapprove someone but still vote for him if you feel there's a "bigger evil".

Those ratings are currently the more worrisome for President Rousseff. 1/3 of Brazilian voters say they'd never vote for her. Her ceiling in a runoff is no higher than about 55% of the valid votes. What helps her is that her floor is high anyway (around 40% of the valid votes). Those 15% that separate Dilma's floor from Dilma's ceiling are the voters that will most likely decide this election.

New Datafolha numbers seem to contradict IBOPE just a little when it comes to Aecio. Otherwise the polls seem to confirm the same trends.

()

The next tracking polls, and the next IBOPE which will be released Tuesday, will be decisive for Aecio. If he doesn't come up with significant gains, the PSDB and its allies will start migrating to Marina quickly, and he'll be forced to spend the last 2 weeks of campaign in Minas Gerais trying to save the local PSDB that's losing that governorship to the PT after 12 years of rule (probably the only relevant governorship the PT will be have on their hands after this cycle).

If he gains significant ground, though, party leaders will be forced to rally around him until the end - not exactly what Geraldo Alckmin and Beto Richa have in mind, as they're poised to win in the 1st round (possibly in convincing fashion), posting their names on the front burner for 2018.

Meanwhile, with Marina's growing rejection, and Dilma still deeply rejected for an incumbent running for reelection, this runoff is shaping up to be an extremely ugly battle of two candidates trying to scare voters away from the other candidate. Dilma has been running tons of negative ads for the last two weeks and Marina has started to run ads responding directly to the President. It'll only get uglier, specially because in a runoff both Marina and Dilma will have exactly the same TV time (today Dilma has about 5x more time than Marina). "Project Fear" is coming to Brazil. :P

PS: Runoff numbers are 46 Marina (-1%) x 44 Dilma (+1%) and 49 Dilma (stable) x 39 Aecio (+1%).

According to Datafolha 70% voters don't know who they'll vote for the lower house of Congress. The proportional system has proved to be a huge failure and is a reason why Congress is so unpopular and clearly in need of reform.

All candidates claim to be in favor of reform. Dilma (and the PT) want to adopt the party-list system. Aecio (and the PSDB) and Marina favor a combined district system, like the one adopted by Germany, so there's ground for Marina and the PSDB to compromise when it comes to political and electoral reform.

Sadly, I'm still not optimistic we'll see a political reform in 2015.

Aécio is partially doing Dilma's job and stealing votes from Marina in the first round and making things worst for her in the second round.

Now I believe that Marina rejection is rising mainly due to PSDB voters. That's good for Aécio in the first round but if he is not able to turn things up, which I don't think he really can, he will probably find himself not being in the second round and being responsible for a rise in Marina's rejection, helping Dilma at the end.

And that's why he's taking a lot of heat from allies and even from many within his party. The PSDB knows this scenario all too well, as they made a similar blunder back in 2002 when they torpedoed Ciro Gomes (a former PSDB member who they could have easily worked with after the election) believing they could elect Serra in a runoff against Lula, even though the national mood was clearly anti-PSDB and avoiding Lula's election should have been their main target.

Of course, Aecio has no other alternative if he wants to stay viable for 2018 and beyond - he has to go after Marina to get as many votes as possible. Anything short of the 25% of valid votes would very likely kill his chances of running for President again anytime soon - at least as PSDB's candidate.

Superique, Paleobrazilian, would you vote for Marina in the 2nd round? Proudly or reluctantly?

I'd definitely vote her against Dilma. I like most of what she says. I'm just unenthusiastic about her "new politics". In fact, I'm unconvinced about how this would work, even though I can imagine her coalition as I said before. She promises way too many constitutional changes (specially the political reform and the tax system reform) which would be hard to pass without solid support in Congress.

It's such a shame Collor isn't running himself. You say "WTF?", but if Itamar could keep trying to run for President way until 2006, why the hell not? :P

Collor is running for senator from the state of Alagoas. Probably he will win. He would have no more than 5% if he ran for president. There is no sense for him to run for president.

I know, right? :P

Seriously though, great job with this thread, guys. I've lost touch with Brazilian politics, so it helps me get reconnected to this :)

Collor is on ticket supported by PT, former enemy Ronaldo Lessa (of PDT). His gubernatorial candidate is Congressman Renan Filho (son of Senate President, Renan Calheiros). Main opponent is former senator Heloisa Helena (PSOL) who got PSDB undercover endorsement.

To Brazilian posters: If Marina did win, how would you rate her possibility of actually implementing environmentalist policies?
How green is she these days. Is the environment still a priority for her?

Could the OP include this election's date in the thread's title, as is standard procedure around here nowadays ? Thx.

Bovespa is sliding about 3% today over rumors that Marina is quickly losing steam in tracking polls.

Bovespa losing 1% right now. Petrobras' main stock is falling 3%. There's tension as it now looks like Marina will be surpassed by Dilma in a runoff in tonight's IBOPE. It's also believed that Aecio has bridged the difference between them further (probably around 6-8% now). Since Aecio is weaker in a runoff than Marina, the market gets even more scared and falls even more.

Any chance of Aecio recovering and making it into a runoff?

Yes if Marina starts to dehydrate quickly, something we'll learn this week. I consider this scenario unlikely, but Aecio is a veteran politician with strong campaigning skills. He's also benefiting from Dilma's blitzkrieg against Marina. If I had to bet, Marina will make it to the runoff about 5% ahead of Aecio in valid votes.

This kind of crash Marina may experience has happened in big municipal and gubernatorial elections before (for example, Celso Russomano's failed run for Mayor of São Paulo in 2012 and Francisco Rossi's big crash all the way back in 1998), but never before in a presidential election (at least since redemocratization). The closest thing to this was in 2002 when Ciro Gomes plummeted in polls right after the TV campaign started. Curiously, in both scenarios I mentioned before there was a strong candidate who was having big trouble to gain traction (Fernando Haddad and Mario Covas), and both times the candidate went on to make it to the runoff by the skin of the teeth and then went on to win the election in a big comeback charge. Both of them benefited from a rival with high rejection rates (José Serra and Paulo Maluf, respectively). Since Dilma has a high rejection rate, it's not hard to understand why Aecio still believes he can win this one.

New IBOPE numbers are out. Dilma gains slightly from Marina and they're now rigorously tied in a runoff. Aeciomentum is dead. If Datafolha confirms those numbers later this week, I'll be surprised if the PSDB doesn't pull the plug on Aecio's campaign. Marina has even embraced Geraldo Alckmin's campaign over the last few days. Aecio will be forced to admit defeat. Perhaps in 2022 or 2026 he'll be luckier.

I don't think Marina loses more unless she makes a very big blunder. This runoff will go neck and neck to the wire. October 26th will be a very nervous day and it may come down to less than a million votes. Buckle up, this is going to be thrilling.

()

Aecio can always follow his grandfather's steps closely and keep trying until he succeeds in his 70s, although following Tancredo Neves is rather risky, considering what happened to him next.

With less than 2 weeks to go, IBOPE is also polling important state runs. Today they released São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Pernambuco.

São Paulo - Governor:

Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) – 49%
Paulo Skaf (PMDB) – 17%
Alexandre Padilha (PT) – 8%
Laércio Benko (PHS) – 1%
Others - 2%
Null: 12%
Undecided: 11%

About Alckmin I think I've already said plenty. :P With those numbers he's now with over 63% of the valid votes, a gigantic number. This is a nightmare for the PT. Padilha is a hugely flawed candidate and rejection of the PT in São Paulo is sky-high. I'll wait until the election day to talk more about the implications of this race, that could be pretty big.

São Paulo - Senator:

José Serra (PSDB) - 34%
Eduardo Suplicy (PT) - 25%
Gilberto Kassab (PSD) - 5%
Ana Luiza (PSTU) - 2%
Marlene Campos Machado (PTB) - 1%
Kaka Wera (PV) - 1%
Others - less than 1%
Null - 13%
Undecided - 17%

This one is not over as there's a big number of undecideds, but Serra actually increased his advantage this time. While voters are probably tired of him in Executive, they seem to be kind with the idea of him as a legislator. Plus, with Alckmin's coattails, momentum is on his side. Suplicy had never faced such a strong candidate, and perhaps the big rejection to the PT locally is also hurting him. As for Kassab, it's not like if he's trying too much. He's a very good friend of Serra :P

Rio de Janeiro - Governor:

Luiz Fernando Pezão (PMDB) - 29%
Anthony Garotinho (PR) – 26%
Marcelo Crivella (PRB) - 17%
Lindberg Farias (PT) – 8%
Tarcísio Motta (PSOL) – 2%
Dayse Oliveira (PSTU) – 1%
Ney Nunes (PCB)  - 0%
Null –  10%
Undecided -  7%

Runoff: Pezão 43% x Garotinho 33%

This race is quicky moving into Pezão's hands. Garotinho has a solid tally of votes on his home city of Campos and on smaller cities, but his rejection on Rio's metro area is probably too big by now. Crivella has probably picked and Farias is yet another big disappointment for the PT. The moment is entirely on Pezão's hands now and he's probably not losing this one unless he makes a big mistake or unless Garotinho falls more and puts Crivella back in the game. I believe Bernardinho and Ellen Gracie (both from PSDB) now regret not running, in a scenario where the four main candidates suffer with lousy approval ratings they could well have been competitive.

Rio de Janeiro - Senator:

Romário (PSB) – 44%
Cesar Maia (DEM) – 21%
Eduardo Serra (PCB) – 2%
Carlos Lupi (PDT) – 2%
Liliam Sá (Pros) - 2%
Others - 2%
Null – 15%
Undecided – 11%

Better known as Brazil's star back in the 1994 World Cup, Romário has become a popular Congressman and is about to make it to the Senate in convincing fashion. Romário has a very, very bright political future - presidential, perhaps.

As for Cesar Maia, well... His time has come and gone.

Minas Gerais - Governor:

Fernando Pimentel (PT) – 44%
Pimenta da Veiga (PSDB) – 25%
Tarcísio Delgado (PSB) – 4%
Fidélis (PSOL) – 1%
Eduardo Ferreira (PSDC) – 1%
Professor Túlio Lopes (PCB) – 1%
Cleide Donária (PCO) – 1%
Null: 9%
Undecided: 14%

This one is REALLY hurting Aecio Neves. He chose a weak candidate to run as the PSDB name here and he's about to lose this mansion the PSDB held for 16 of the last 20 years, including the last 12. The PSDB will be pissed if Pimenta da Veiga indeed loses by such a large margin without even forcing a runoff, and this makes Aecio even weaker within his party. Meanwhile, Pimentel solidifies his name as a rising star within the PT and will probably be the only candidate of the PT to win a relevant state government. More on this later.

Minas Gerais - Senator:

Antonio Anastasia (PSDB) - 47%
Josué Alencar (PMDB) - 20%
Margarida (PSB) - 1%
Tarcísio (PSDC) - 1%
Edilson Nascimento (PTdoB) - 1%
Geraldo Batata (PSTU) - 1%
Graça (PCO) - 1%
Pablo Lima (PCB) - 1%
Null - 11%
Undecided - 17%

Antonio Anastasia was a popular governor who followed Aecio's footprints pretty well. It's no surprise that he's running so strong. More on this later as well.

Pernambuco - Governor:

Paulo Câmara (PSB): 39%
Armando Monteiro (PTB): 35%
Others: Less than 1%
Null: 10%
Undecided: 15%

A down to the wire race. Câmara was Eduardo Campos' candidate. Since Campos was a hugely popular governor of Pernambuco, it's no suprise that he's doing well. But Monteiro is the candidate of Dilma and she's also popular in Pernambuco. I feel Câmara is the favorite but this will be a tight one.

Pernambuco:

João Paulo (PT) - 34%
Fernando Bezerra Coelho (PSB) - 28%
Simone Fontana (PSTU) - 2%
Albanise Pires (PSOL) - 1%
Oxis (PCB) - 1%
Null - 14%
Undecided - 21%

João Paulo was a popular Mayor of Recife so it's not surprising that he's ahead. Bezerra Coelho was the candidate of Eduardo Campos. This one will be tight as well. There are still many undecideds.

I think that PT failed to create a bench in São Paulo. And old party names are in jail or weakned. Padilha isn't well because Haddad isn't popular(he's acting more like a technical than a politician).And Alckmin is winning more due to weak opponents than being a fantastic governor. Skaf looks a lemon salesman. And looks that Alckmin can be national best voted governor in first round. I think that to win in São Paulo, PT should support an outside candidate from a non-PT party, like a non-capital mayor, like Rodrigo Agostinho (Bauru-PMDB) or Darcy Vera (Ribeirao Preto-PSD). Suplicy is somewhat out of touch with state demands and he looks to be somewhat senile.
In Rio de Janeiro, run-off can be a problem for Pezão. He's well because of his large TV time, but in run-off, with equal times, he can lose to a good orator, like Garotinho. And kingmaker can be Romario (he almost went to Garotinho's PR, but withdrew when Campos gave him PSB's control).
In Minas Gerais, Pimenta da Veiga was chosen to prevent a internal fight and to make national PSDB bosses happy (Pimenta was old tucano). But controversies due to Aecio's airport scandal and Marina's surge prevented a large advantadge. But Pimentel (PT) isn't controversial. In 2008, he allied Aecio to support Marcio Lacerda (PSB)'s mayoral bid.
In Pernambuco, Campos' family is going heavy to campaign for Camara, fearing a last week victory by Monteiro.

I think Pezão will have 60% in the runoff, due to Garotinho's high rejection. Upper middle class voters who voted for Denise Frossard in 2006 and Fernando Gabeira in 2010, when Sérgio Cabral was backed by the PT, will now vote for Pezão.

Bernardinho and Ellen Gracie did not want to get into the politics. PSDB though that by endorsing Pezão, the support of PMDB politicians from Rio de Janeiro would help Aécio, considering that Rio de Janeiro has the 3rd biggest population, and PSDB is usually weak there.
Probably, large economic groups from Rio de Janeiro, like Globo and Firjan, who support the PSDB at the national level and the PMDB at the state level, backed the Aezão - aliance between PMDB, PSDB and DEM, in order to avoid the victory of an evangelic populist (Garotinho, Crivella) or the victory of the left (Lindberg).  If Pezão, César Maia and a PSDB candidate run separetely, they could split the center-right vote and allow a runoff between Garotinho and Crivella or Garotinho and Lindberg.
PSDB will be satisfied with the continuation of PMDB administration in Rio de Janeiro. Cabral/Pezão work with a lot of PSDB technocrats.

I am confused. Antonio Anastasia was eligible for another term as governor, no? He was elected in 2010.

Nope.

Aécio Neves resigned in March 2010 in order to run for the Senate, Anastasia was the vice governor, so, he became the governor. That's why he was "reelected" in October 2010. He was already in the office during the election. So, he is not eligible for another term.

Exactly. Under Brazilian law, you're forced to resign from Executive office 6 months before the election if you want to run for some other public office (this rule doesn't apply if you're running for reelection or if you're a legislator). Thus, Aecio Neves resigned and Anastasia took office. This law has tons of critics but I don't see it being changed for now.

Ugh, that idiotic law, the decompati-whatever. It should be abolished.

Marina Silva is not focusing her campaign on environment. She is in a battle against Aécio Neves for the right-wing votes. Environment is not a very popular issue among the kind of voter she is trying to get.

However, of course her program mentions environment. She pretends to create a "Brazilian Market of carbono emission".

This text explains the diferences between Marina's and Dilma's views on environment. It was published in a pro-Dilma site. It is in Portuguese.

http://www.cartamaior.com.br/?%2FEditoria%2FMeio-Ambiente%2FCupula-do-Clima-o-desencontro-entre-Dilma-e-Marina%2F3%2F31857

Well, I know she is going for the right wing vote, which was the background for my question. I am interested in 1) your evaluation of whether she still cares about those issues 2) if so, what is her chance of implementing anyhing "green" with the kind of congress she is likely to get?

My humble opinion: No and no.

And now Anastasia himself had to resign to run for Senate.

I really don't understand why an executive should resign while running for another post while a legislator doesn't have to.

My opinion: Yes and no, it's not her top prority and she won't be able to do much with the largely conservative Congress that we have...

If Aecio indeed comes third, not making into a runoff, it would be the first time PSDB did not take one of two first places in presidential election. Could that, combined with troubles in his home state (gubernatorial race) really damage his future chances? Though, again, Brazilian politics is known for comebacks.

(Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions)

Bovespa climbing over 2,5% today. Petrobras' stock skyrocketing 6%. Itaú gaining 4,4%. I think Marina will regain traction on tonight's Datafolha.

Any good investment tips with the stocks jumping up and down like that? Which ones moves the most with the polls?

(sorry for going off topic)

Unfortunately that is not the case. Datafolha is showing Dilma with 40%, Marina with 27% and Aécio with 18% =(

Dilma takes a 4 point lead in the runoff. Over 11 thousand voters polled, excellent sample. Here go the details:

()

Not only Dilma regains ground, she also lowers her rejection ratings. This + many Aecio voters that now say they'll nullify their votes on the runoff = tight Dilma win. If Marina loses due to Aecio voters that refused to vote for Marina, Aecio will be hated forever by many in the PSDB and ally parties (in desperation, Aecio has been attacking Marina quite strongly).

With recent poll numbers and the general mood, I think I can describe Aecio's situation this way (long post):

Aecio has been showing weakness ever since he took office as Senator back in 2011. Here in Brazil, being in the Executive is WAY more important than being in the Legislative, not only because who's in the Executive has the whole machine basically on his hand under Brazil's Constitution, but also because Congress in Brazil has appalling approval ratings. In 2012, Aecio failed to elect Mayors in many important cities of Minas Gerais (like Uberaba, Uberlândia and all cities of the Vale do Aço metropolitan area). This, plus Aecio's growing weakness, helps explaining the weakness of PSDB's candidate in Minas Gerais.

The second fact that has to be taken in account is that, for many PSDBists (affectionately called toucans), Aecio betrayed Alckmin's presidential campaign in 2006 and Serra's presidential campaign in 2010. It's pretty much well known that both times Aecio kindly accepted the Lula-Aecio and Dilma-Anastasia campaigns ran by local leaders tied to Aecio. In 2006, Aecio barely made a move for Alckmin, focusing on his own reelection campaign, as he knew this would be the best way to give him an opening to run for president in 2010. In 2010, after being defeated by Serra on the run to be the PSDB's candidate, Aecio also left Serra for dead, instead focused on electing Anastasia and consolidating his name as the consensus candidate of his party for 2014.

Of course, I do believe Aecio should have been PSDB's candidate back in 2010. He was young, fresh, the incumbent two term governor of a very important state with sky-high approval ratings, while Serra looked old and tired through the entire campaign. But it's obvious that Aecio shouldn't have put his own interests before the ones of his party. This pretty much killed him within the PSDB and its allies, and its unsurprising, though, that many within the party are secretly smiling when they see Aecio failing dismally. This is happening not only in São Paulo, but pretty much in all the PSDB state cells around the country. It's scary that the only strong gubernatorial candidate from an important state to fully embrace Aecio's campaign (other than Pimenta da Veiga, of course) is Ana Amélia Lemos (PP-RS), who's from a party that endorses Dilma nationally.

As for the consequences of this, I feel they're pretty big:

First, I think Aecio is way too damaged to be the PSDB's presidential candidate in 2018. Not only he showed weakness (even inside his own turf), he also totally failed to unify his party around him, due to his past and the own ambitions of party leaders. He even tried to bring former PSDB leaders (including FHC) to the spotlight to try to solidify the support he should have gotten from the base, but failed in epic fashion. The party has shifted strongly to the leaders it elected in 2010 (Alckmin, Beto Richa, Simão Jatene, Marconi Perillo, Aloysio Nunes, even Anastasia who was seen as a puppet of Aecio at first glance), and while FHC, Arminio Fraga and etc are still pretty much heroes within the party, they're not the unifying figures they used to be anymore.

Second, it's crucial to understand the shift I mentioned above. When the PSDB was created back in 1988, it was supposed to be a "new left" political party, Brazil's own "new Labour". It's most prominent members in the beginning were well known left wing thinkers such as FHC, José Serra, José Aníbal, etc. As any "new left" group, they were pretty much a center-left party with highly pragmatical policies. The best example is the famous "infusion of capitalism" speech given by the great Mario Covas back in 1989, when he mentioned the urging need of more liberalism allied to social policies. That was pretty much the PSDB you had until 2002.

When the PT took over the federal government, it pretty much took over the center-left sweet spot the PSDB and it's older leaders occupied (perhaps a tad to the left than the PSDB used to be). Some will say the PSDB was a right wing party back then, I strongly reject this notion but I guess this depends on what one consider as left or right. Anyway, it's pretty clear PSDB members started to shift slowly to the right after 2002, slowly embracing economic liberalism less shyly and some conservative social policies (specially on law enforcement matters). This trend was accelerated in 2010 and 2012, when many toucans and close allies were elected under center-right platforms and policies, including Alckmin, Beto Richa, Aloysio Nunes, ACM Neto, etc. Alckmin is running a decidely center-right campaign this year (specially on law enforcement matters, where he's adopting a strong law and order speech) that's proving to be very successful.

All that means that this may end up being a realigning election for the PSDB, with the party embracing a new center-right spot more decisively. Many old leaders feel unwell with this change, but there's not much left for them to do now. Aecio has been stuck between the old, center-left PSDB and the new, center-right PSDB. He's been trying to pander more to right wing voters talking about liberal policies and a law and order speech. But not only he's being hurt by right wing tactical voting for Marina, he also doesn't sound convincing when using a right wing speech, even though he implemented policies similar to those when he was Governor of Minas Gerais. This speech flows way more naturally with Geraldo Alckmin, for example. That's another reason why I think Aecio is gone as a relevant PSDB name for now, and possibly for good.

Third, 2018 is shaping up to be the first time in 20 years when there will be no bad blood about the PSDB nominee for the presidential race. In 2002, Serra was chosen because he was a good friend of FHC and well known nationally, but a more pragmatic faction of the party preferred Ceara's two term incumbent governor Tasso Jereissati. In 2006, Serra battled until the end to be the nominee, but in the end Alckmin won the nomination. Then after, both Serra and Aecio threw him under the bus. In 2010, Serra and Aecio had a bloddy battle for the nomination, and Aecio pretty much ignored the interest of his party after Serra was chosen.  This year Aecio was not seriously challenged, but is struggling with the bad blood left from 2006 and 2010.

As for 2018, some say Serra is still (unbelievably) interested, but I simply don't see him as a serious challenger for Alckmin. Serra looks older than ever and will be 76 by election day 2018, simply too old to be seriously considered. Not to mention that Serra represents the old PSDB, which, as I said, is on the road to extinction. Alckmin has already taken over the chairmanship of São Paulo's PSDB and the national PSDB shouldn't be a hard challenge for him now. Plus, if the current scenario stays put (and today's Datafolha confirmed Tuesday's IBOPE), Alckmin is poised to win over 60% of the valid votes in a 1st round election, an amazing result for the PSDB. Hell, he's on track to win ALL the 653 cities of São Paulo with Padilha's awful performance. Only a disaster will take the nomination away from him, and with the solidification of the move to the right and Aecio's loss of strength, you can be certain he'll be the 1st PSDB candidate after FHC's reelection campaign to rally the entire base around him.

Finally, one last thing. Don't rule out a party switch for Aecio. He's a political predator and perhaps a party like the PTB or even the PMDB will want a candidate for the presidency in 2018. Aecio would be perfect for them. He considered this idea around 2009, let's not forget.

After October 26th it'll be important to evaluate all this again. Some things may change, but I think the scenario is pretty much the one described above.

Just found this answer - a bit funny now that he was so adamant about it, but batmacumba hasn't been active since March, so I can't tease him with it.

Anyway, you guys don't mention Congress much. How are the polls? Is there any chance of more consolidation or will it remain fragmented?

Well, Brazil has a very complicated system for the election of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the Congress). Even many Brazilians don't understand.

There are 513 deputies. Each state has a number of seats in a proportion according to the population. But there are limits. No state can have more than 70 seats and no less than 8 seats. São Paulo, the most populous state, would have 110 deputies according to the proportion of the population, but has only 70. Roraima, the least populous state, would have 1 seat, but has 8.

The seats are filled through a proportional representation system. However, unlike PR in other countries, in Brazil, people can vote either for an individual candidate or a party (the large majority of the Brazilians vote for an individual candidate). It works like that:
Consider state X, which has 8 seats, 40000 voters, and two parties, A and B.

The Party A candidates are Pedro, José, Julia, André, Maria, Carlos, Paulo, Jorge
The Party B candidates are Sílvio, Marcelo, Flávio, Reginaldo, Felipe, Rafael, Lucas, Patricia

The results are

Partisan vote for party A: 1100
Pedro: 8200
José: 6900
Julia: 3000
André: 2300
Maria: 1900
Carlos: 900
Paulo: 500
Jorge: 200

Partisan vote for party B: 800
Sílvio: 6600
Marcelo: 3000
Flávio: 2500
Reginaldo: 800
Felipe: 600
Rafael: 300
Lucas: 200
Patricia: 200

If you add the number of partisan votes to the number of votes to the candidates of each party, Party A has 25000 votes and Party B has 15000. Considering that this state has 8 seats, according to the proportion, Party A wins 5 seats and Party B wins 3 seats. The candidates who win the seats are the ones who have the biggest number of votes in each party. So, Pedro, José, Julia, André and Maria are elected in Party A, and Sílvio, Marcelo and Flávio are elected in Party B.

Most of the Brazilians decide for whom they will vote for deputy only a weak before the election. Most of them do not care about the party. That's why it is very hard to predict the result of the election for the lower house through polls.
Many parties use famous people as candidates, in order to receive a large number of votes, and then, a large number of seats. The candidate who received the biggest number of votes in São Paulo in 2010 was Tiririca, a comedian, and probably he will receive the biggest number of votes again.

Considering the Senate (upper house)
this year, only one third (27) of the 81 senators will be elected. So, the seats of the senators elected in 2006 are being contested in this election.

In 2006, PT elected only the senators in São Paulo and Acre. Probably, in São Paulo, Eduardo Suplicy will loose the reelection to PSDB candidate José Serra. But PT has big chances in Pernambuco (former Recife mayor João Paulo) and Rio Grande do Sul (former governor Olívio Dutra).
Many senators elected in 2006 were from PSDB, PFL (now, the name of this party is DEM) and PMDB. Maybe, DEM (the most conservative party) will lose ground, but PSDB will elect many senators again.
Nowadays, PMDB has 20 seats, PT has 12 seats, PSDB has 12 seats, PTB has 6 seats, PDT has 5 seats, PP has 5 seats, PR has 5 seats, PSB has 4 seats, DEM has 4 seats, PCdoB has 2 seats, PSD has 2 seats, PRB has 1 seat, PSC has 1 seat, PV has 1 seat and PSOL has 1 seat. I think the number of seats for each party will not change very much.

It's expected that the PMDB will retain their grip to the Senate, perhaps expanding it to up to 20 seats (there's a total of 81 seats on the Senate). The PT will be #2 again, and the PSDB will be # 3 again. PSB leaders are confident they'll be the 4th force on the Senate in 2015.

As for the Chamber of Deputies, the PT is expected to have losses in some states, possibly big ones. Still, they'll probably have up to 90 seats, contesting the presidency of the Chamber with the PMDB. The PSDB is confident about gaining seats here in São Paulo but should lose in other places. The PSB and the PSD are battling for the 4th place.

The proportional system used in Brazil is AWFUL. As buritobr also mentioned, the "one man one vote" logic is invalid here in Brazil due to the disproportional allocation of Congressmen between the states. As I said before, there's urging need for a political reform, all candidates talk about it, none of them will take the idea seriously.

Thank you for your extremely informative answer, Paleobrazilian! :)

Seems Aecio really screwed himself with his own Party. Aren't things such as "Lula-Aecio" and "Dilma-Anastasia" a big no-no for PT and PSDB establishments?

A thought of Aecio switching to PMDB or PTB and becoming their candidate is interesting. Haven't PMDB last run a candidate in 1994? Quite interesting for the biggest party.

Well the PMDB is just supposed to be... there. That is its job. It would be antithetical to its purpose, that being taking as much as a share a of the trough of governance as is possible. Nothing that cannot be done as part of a coalition, at this point.

In a country of amorphous parties, the PMDB excels in having as little as a cohesive ideology as possible; it is a different thing with every candidate, not to mention every state. To run a candidate would would almost certainly be disastrous, and probably precipitate its breakup. But, of course, that doesn't exclude them from trying.

Actually having the Presidency would give them direct and unstoppable access to the machine and the $$$, something they have dreamed ever since the Constitutional Assembly. They considered attracting Aecio to them between 2006 and 2010, but the restriction on party switches placed by Brazil's Supreme Court stopped him from seriously considering the move at that moment (if he switched his party he'd have to surrender his Governor seat). Some within the PMDB wanted the former Governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral, to run for the Presidency this year, and many believed that even if he lost this year, he'd be an interesting possibility for 2018. But Cabral is now a pretty toxic figure, even in his own state, so I don't really see him as a viable alternative anymore.

Overall, I don't think the PMDB will have a presidential candidate for 2018. That's really not their #1 strategy. But that's a point they love to raise when their relations with the PT turn sour and when they're demanding more cabinet posts. It's hard to predict the electoral landscape for 2018 so early on in a country with 32 political parties, and 5 more ready to be authorized by the TSE, so this possibility can't be ruled out right now.


The PT never really cared because they knew they weren't competitive on state races in Minas Gerais in 2006 and 2010. The PSDB couldn't do much about this because national agreements don't bound local agreements, so local allies were absolutely free to promote those bizarre tickets. This year PSDB candidates are going even further, as Alckmin and Richa, for example, got Beto Albuquerque to run ads in favor of their campaigns (something that displeased BOTH Aecio and Marina).

I think it is fair that the low populated states are overrepresented in the Congress. But the Senate already does this job. Every state has three senators, no matter the population. It is understandable, considering that the senators represent the states, not the people.

Since the Senate already exists, it is not necessary the low populated states to be overrepresented and São Paulo to be underrepresented in the Chamber of Deputies too. I am against the minimum limit of 8 and the maximum limit of 70 legislators for each state. However, this rule will never change. It is necessary a constitutional ammendment to change this rule, approved by 3/5 of the chambre and the senate. Since the North and the Northeast are favored by the overrepresentation of low populated states, a constitutional ammendment like this will never be approved.

So no possibility of changing the constitution via a referendum under any circumstances?

Well, the left-wing parties, including PT and PCdoB, and the oppositionist PSOL, are supporting a referendum in order to change the political system. They don't mention state representation, but they support that the money for the electoral campaign should be provided by the state and not by firms's donations, in order to avoid that the economic power influence the political power. They also argue that private firms who donate money for electoral campaign receive the money back through government procurement, when the candidates they support are elected (well, it happens also in PT administrations). That's why the companies who build large public works are the main donators in electoral campaigns. PT wants also to end the vote for individual candidates in the election for the legislative branch, the system that I explained in the post before. PT considers that the voters should vote only for parties, not for individual candidates, like in the other countries who implemente proportional representation.

But the referendum should be approved by the congress...

In early september, the left-wing parties organized na unnoficial referendum... Well, but this referendum was... unnoficial.

Also by a 3/5 majority? Or would a simple majority be enough?

Btw isn't it quite common that PR systems allow you to vote for either a party or a candidate? I never really thought about it, since we have always done so in Denmark  and I just assumed it was fairly normal. In a strong party system it doesn't weaken parties (and FPTP countries can obviously have quite strong party systems, even if everybody votes for a candidate). But I can see how it may inhibited the establishment of a strong party system.

A referendum to reform the Constitution could only be called by the 3/5 supermajority. As buritobr correctly pointed out, this is (sadly) virtually impossible, considering how disproportional is the representation on the Chamber of Deputies. The North, the Northeast and the Center-West would vote in block to stop any attempt of establishing true proportional allocation of Congressmen between the states.

I think the only realistic possibility of doing this nowadays would be vastly increasing the number of Congressman in the Chamber. Under some calculations I did some years ago, by increasing the number of Congressman by 150 it would be possible for almost all states to keep the representation on the Chamber they currently have. The only states that would lose would be Acre, Roraima and Amapá, very sparsely inhabited northern states. But creating more Congressmen would probably be hugely unpopular with voters, as Congress is disapproved by 80% of the population and each Congressman represents a huge cost for taxpayers.

The rejection of the vote for individual candidates is not a consensus in the left. The mainstream of the PT supports the party list vote, but the left-wing of the PT considers that this changes would give too much power for the bureaucracies of the parties.

I didn't know that in Denmark people could vote for candidates too. So, the Danish system looks like Brazilian system.

On the other side, the right used to support the implementation of the pure FPTP, like the one in the USA and UK. But nowadays, the right realized that the current system allows the elected Congress to be more conservative than the elected presidents.

Green party candidate Eduardo Jorge and other centrists support a constitutional amendment to implement a mixed FPTP-PR system, like the one in Germany.

I like the German system, but I don't think it is possible to implement in Brazil. We don't have districts since 1930. I think that drawing congressional districts would be an impossible task.

That's possible in Brazil. What the PT wants to do is replacing the open list system, where you can vote for the party OR for a single candidate, by the closed list system, where you can only vote for the party. In the open list currently used seats are allocated proportionally and the list is composed by the number of votes each candidate of the colligation got. Under the closed, the list would be previously established by the party.

The PSDB, meanwhile, favors combining one of those systems with district voting. Inside districts, the rule would probably be FPTP.

I watched only the end of the debate, but considering what I read in the Twitter and Facebook, probably Aécio Neves will go to the runoff.

Well, personally I always saw it this way: PSDB pretty much started as a classical social democratic party (including Covas supporting Lula against Collor in 1989, after not making it into the runoff). In 1990s, like many social democratic parties, PSBD embraced third way policy, as evident with FHQ famous statement of rejecting "outdated labels" such as "left" and "right". By 2000s, and with third way philosophy demise, the party simply could not shift back to the left, even if they wanted to, because there is simply not enough room.

IBOPE and Datafolha will be releasing national and big state polls tomorrow and Thursday. I believe both will also release their final polls Saturday night. IBOPE will also definitely realize it's traditional exit poll Sunday.

Bovespa is plummeting nearly 4% with Petrobras losing about 10% with Datafolha's last poll and general fears about Marina getting weaker each passing day. The prospect of 4 more years of PT is clearly scaring the market, specially because Dilma has adopted a pretty leftist, populist speech to knock Marina down. There's growing consensus within the government that Dilma will have to make mends with the financial market if she's reelected, specially because there are growing concerns that Brazil will remain with inflation above 5% and growth below 2% at least until the end of 2016.

PS: with the fears of Dilma's reelection, foreign investors are fleeing from Brazil, taking aways dollars from the market. The US$ has just reached it's highest rate against the Real since December 2008, the height of the financial crisis. This brings fears of more inflation.

I disagree. PSDB had never been a classical social democratic party. Unlike the European social democratic parties, PSDB had never been supported by organized labor. No big unions backed this party. PSDB was founded in 1988 by PMDB politicians unsatisfied with that party. In its early days, PSDB was a party of Congressmen and academics, not a party of interest groups of the society. Then, the interest group which became the base of the PSDB was big business and not big labor.
In the election of 1989, Covas supported Lula in the runoff not because he was against the neoliberal proposals of Collor (Covas supported privatization too), but because it was the first free presidential election after the military dictatorship, Covas and Lula were opponents of the dictatorship and Collor started his political career in the party that backed the dictatorship. Fernando Henrique Cardoso was against endorsing Lula, but at that time, Covas was more powerful in the party. After that, PSDB members, like Antônio Kandir, worked in Collor administration.
Of course, PSDB moved to the right in 1994, when it built a coalition with the conservative PFL to support Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and moved further to the right when it became the opposition party, after Lula had become the president.

PT looks like a classical social democratic party. When it was founded in 1980, it was a party of the marxist left, like the European social democratic parties founded 100 years before. Then, PT became a social democratic party. It is still on the left of European social democratic parties because PT did not go to the Third Way. It was going to the Third Way during Lula's first term (2003-2006) but moved a little bit to the left again in the second term. Both in the past, when PT was a radical left-wing party and in the present, when PT is a social democratic party, PT is supported by CUT, the biggest union of labor unions.

IBOPE has registered its last poll, which will be released Saturday, probably Saturday night during Jornal Nacional, Brazil's most watched news program. 3000 people will be polled.

All states will get at least one more IBOPE poll to be released between Thursday and Saturday. The most important states will get 3 polls, just like the national race. I'll post all last polls so that we can see on an average how accurate IBOPE really was this year.

Main theme today was homophobic rant by candidate Levy Fidelix (PRTB) at yesterday TV Record debate. After a question by Luciana Genro (PSOL), he said that "two equal people don't reproduce" and that "excretive system don't give birth". He proposed that straight majority should "defy" LGBT minority. OAB (Brazilian bar) is requesting that his registration to be banned.

Datafolha will release its last poll Saturday night, possibly during Jornal Nacional, possibly a little bit before. 17800 voters from 476 cities will be polled, making this one pretty much the ultimate poll.

Datafolha will also release state polls from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Ceará, Pernambuco and the Federal District - pretty much the most important states.

The election gets more bizarre each passing day. Today Mark Ruffalo endorsed Marina Silva, releasing a video in Youtube in her favor. A few hours later, as he learned Marina flip-flopped on marriage equality, he withdrew his endorsement. So what should have been good news to Marina is now "even the incredible Hulk fled from Marina".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7OkDFzVrnc

This is the "other side of the coin".

Some TV broadcasts would like to invite only the three candidates who can win to participate in the debate. But the electoral law demands that candidates from all parties who have representatives in the Congress must be invited. So, not only Dilma, Marina and Aécio participate, but Luciana Genro, Eduardo Jorge, Pastor Everaldo and Levy Fidelix participate too.

In the first debate, when Luciana Genro and Eduardo Jorge supported gay marriage, legalization of abortion and legalization of marijuana, I saw many comments saying that the electoral law makes the debates more democratic, because issues that would never be discussed by the three major candidates could be discussed by the others and showed to millions of people. But if the law creates room for social liberal ideas, like the ones supported by Luciana Genro and Eduardo Jorge, it also creates room for stupid ideas. Being pro gay marriage is an opinion, being anti gay marriage is an opinion, expose hate to homossexuals is a crime.

I agree with the electoral law and I think that the "nanicos" should be allowed to participate too. But hate crimes should be punished.

The problem is the lack of a barrier clause. The 90's barrier clause was only ruled unconstitutional due to a technicality (it was a normal law and should have been a constitutional amendment). The problem is, no one has the necessary courage to do this anymore.

I do think the electoral process in Brazil is over-regulated, but this is just a consequence of a system where voting is mandatory. The electoral system is authoritarian in its essence.

Bovespa drops about 1,5% as the market anxiously waits for the next poll. Banks are the main losers today, specially Brazil's public owned bank, Banco do Brasil, which is already losing about 6%. Petrobras also keeps losing value.

The race for the runoff gets slowly tighter according to Datafolha and perhaps if the trend continues Aecio will squeak by. Marina now performs just as poorly as Aecio in the runoff, so the tactical vote for Marina could well die now and this may just be what Aecio needs to make it to the runoff.

The large number on the right is the number of valid votes. That's the number that will really matter on Sunday.

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Why is Marina collapsing? It must be more than just a bad debate performance.

Heavy attack ads from both Dilma and Aecio, greater media scrutiny, a poorly written election manifesto, questions about her (lack of) experience, 2 (3 depending on how you see her "Rede") party switches in about 5 years, the fact that many within the higher ranks of the PSB dislike her, the fact that the PSB has less money, ground support and grassroots networks than the PT and the PSDB, many flip-flops, and even a few lies about her record as Senator.

It was always gonna be a tough proposition for her to stay 10 points ahead of Dilma in a runoff, but I expected her to make it a very tight election. But she made way too many amateur mistakes. In fact, if she indeed loses reelection, this may well be remembered as an election she fumbled.

IBOPE numbers are out. Very similar 1st round numbers to Datafolha. Very different runoff numbers though. According to IBOPE Marina is only 4 points behind Dilma in the runoff, against 8 on Datafolha. IBOPE has way many undecideds than Datafolha. A Dilma-Aecio runoff has similar numbers to the ones from Datafolha, but once again there are 10% more undecideds.

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Runoff numbers (nearly impossible to read): Dilma 42% x Marina 38%; Dilma 45% x Aecio 35%

Usually I trust Datafolha more. Right now, I'm torn. I think we'll have some surprises Sunday.

The biggest difference between Ibope and Datafolha is that Ibope shows a larger percentage of voters who wouldn't vote for any candidate or have not decided yet (branco/nulo/indeciso).

I think it is not hard to explain. Ibope interviews people at their homes. Datafolha interviews people at streets. When stopped by a Datafolha interviewer at the street, the probability of somenone who is not interested in the election say "sorry, I don't have time" is bigger than the probability of someone interested in the election do that. Someone who is interested in the election would be very happy in being interviewed by the poll.
Someone not interested in the election would say "I don't have time" at the street, but probably, she would not say "go away" when na interviewer knock her door at home.

That's why I think Ibope interviews a larger percentage of voters who are not interested in the election.

I'm undecided between Eduardo Jorge and Lucians Genro in the 1st. round right now... I've just watched the last debate and liked Genro more... What would you do??

I have already considered the possibility of voting for Luciana Genro or Eduardo Jorge. But then, I realized that they don't want to be the president. They want only to show the ideas of their parties during the campaign. That's why I will vote for Dilma Rousseff. I don't like "protest vote".

Luciana Genro and Eduardo Jorge brought very good ideas to the campaign, like the taxation of big wealthies, anti-trust laws in the media market (in order to make the media more democratic), land and urban reform, legalization of abortion, legalization of marijuana. But in order to support these issues, I vote for a Congressman who support them. These are not the most important issues for me to choose a president.

One issue supported by Luciana Genro and Eduardo Jorge which is also supported by Dilma Rousseff is increasing the relevance of direct democracy mechanisms.


My complete vote

State Deputy: Robson Leite 13013
Federal Deputy: Jean Wyllys 5005
Senator: Romário 400
Governor: Lindberg Farias 13
President: Dilma Rousseff 13

I'd go with Eduardo Jorge between those, but of course I'm classical liberal on the economy with a libertarian streak on social issues. If I were a left-wing voter, I'd probably go with Luciana Genro, even though I feel she's way too tied to the old left.

One more interesting fact: according to IBOPE and Datafolha Marina's voters know less her number on the electronic ballot, and they have more trouble using the electronic ballot. That could end up being a problem for her if the election is too tight.

Considering that now the runoff scenario between Dilma and Aécio, and between Dilma and Marina, are not too diferent, there will be no generic anti-PT strategic vote for Marina anymore. But it won't have too much impact. I think most of the Marina vote is not strategic. Most of the polls in 2013 showed Marina ahead of Aécio.


Concercing Marina's number: if past Marina voters type 43 (Green Party number, her number in 2010), they will see Eduardo Jorge's face. They would ask: why does she have a beard in the picture?

State polls Ibope


São Paulo (22,4% of the Brazilian electorate)

Governor
Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) 45%
Paulo Skaf (PMDB) 19%
Alexandre Padilha (PT) 11%

President
Marina Silva (PSB) 29%
Dilma Rousseff (PT) 29%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 22%
Luciana Genro (PSOL) 1%
Pastor Everaldo (PSC) 1%


Rio de Janeiro (8,5% of the Brazilian electorate)

Governor
Luiz Fernando Pezão (PMDB) 31%
Anthony Garotinho (PR) 24%
Marcelo Crivella (PRB) 16%
Lindberg Farias (PT) 9%

President
Dilma Rousseff (PT) 37%
Marina Silva (PSB) 33%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 13%
Pastor Everaldo (PSC) 1%
Luciana Genro (PSOL) 1%


Minas Gerais (10,7% of the Brazilian electorate)

Governor
Fernando Pimentel (PT) 45%
Pimenta da Veiga (PSDB) 25%

President
Dilma Rousseff (PT) 36%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 31%
Marina Silva (PSB) 17%
Pastor Everaldo (PSC) 1%
Luciana Genro (PSOL) 1%


Distrito Federal (1,3% of the Brazilian electorate)

Governor
Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB) 32%
Jofran Frejat (PR) 24%
Agnelo Queiroz (PT) 19%

President
Marina Silva (PSB) 36%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 24%
Dilma Rousseff (PT) 23%
Pastor Everaldo (PSC) 1%
Luciana Genro (PSOL) 1%
Eduardo Jorge (PV) 1%

Her biggest risk are voters getting confused and nullify their votes.

In a very close election turnout could be decisive as well. Of course, voting in Brazil is mandatory, but if you're outside your voting city you cannot vote and just has to sign a paper informing you were outside. Plus, some voters from rural areas sometimes don't vote, as the consequences of not voting are not particularly serious  (it'll forbid you to take public admission exams and getting a passport, basically).

Wow. Aecio losing his home state would be quite devastating, wouldn't it?

(Yes, I know Minas is also Dilma's home state, but given Aecio was a highly popular Governor with strong machine...)

I don't like protest vote either, but I can't vote for Dilma in the 1st round... We disagree on many, many issues: abortion, LGBT rights, drugs, environment... Whatsmore, I find her soft on corruption and hate some of the parties who are supporting her (PP, PRB).

I think I'll vote for Eduardo Jorge in the end just because I like him more, but I hope both of them get over 1% (Luciana over 2% could be possible!).

Datafolha numbers in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro:

()()

Question: How politically different are Rousseff and Silva?

Dilma's birth state is Minas Gerais. Dilma's home state is Rio Grande do Sul. When her party was PDT, she was the Secretary of Finance of the Municipality of Porto Alegre (state capital) between 1986 and 1988. When she was still in the PDT, she was the Secretary of Energy of the State of Rio Grande do Sul under the administration of the PT governor Olívio Dutra, between 1999 and 2002. In 2001, when the PDT decided to not endorse Dutra's administration anymore, Dilma joined the PT.

Actually Dilma had some sort of a Mitt Romney problem back in 2010 when she claimed she had 2 home states. This time it seems she decided to shy from this strategy, as she said on Sunday's debate that Minas Gerais was "Aecio's territory, not hers" (an idiot statement IMO, but not one that will hurt her).

Today was the last day of campaign on the TV and in the radio for candidates for Governor, Senator and State Congresses. Yesterday the last debates between candidates for Governor happened. Thus, the campaign for those offices is now basically over. Big changes now are very unlikely, barring an unexpected event of large impact.

Now it's all about ground support, those candidates I mentioned above have to make sure voters will know their numbers once they get ahead of the electronic ballot, and grassroots support is essential for this. Those localized troops will print tons of leaflets with the numbers of the candidates, and having many leaflets floating around can be crucial due to the number factor.

Here's a video of Geraldo Alckmin's campaign teaching his voters how to vote for him. Many videos like those, of mnemonic songs are circulating right now, to help voters remember the number they have to type.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFnvbIpRsQI

PS: of course voters with higher education degrees know they have to type 45 when voting for the PSDB, or 13 when voting PT. But many voters with lower education levels struggle using the electronic ballot. Making things worse, quite a few people only started paying attention to the race and settled their votes over the last few days.

OK, I got confused because wiki listed Minas as her "home state".

Btw, it's interesting to see how many leftist political figures in Brazil were or are based in  Rio Grande do Sul.

Rio Grande do Sul is the most politicized state in Brazil, due to many social and historical reasons. Not only it has a strong left, it has also a very strong and starkly marked right, and there's pretty much a 50/50 split between those sides. Rio Grande do Sul also has a very strong anti-incumbent record, a Governor has never been reelected there, and the last two governors that tried reelection couldn't even make it to the runoff.

Once again Bovespa floats wildly before polls, this time gaining 2%. According to rumors it'll be a dead heat between Aecio and Marina tonight.

In few words, using American definition

Dilma Rousseff = big government
Marina Silva = small government

You can find more detalied discussion in this thread

According to Datafolha it's now a statistically tied game between Marina and Aecio. They now do exactly the same way in a runoff. This will be very, very tight.

()

IBOPE shows things a little bit differently. Lots of uncertainty.

()

Runoff: Dilma 43% (+1) x Marina 36% (-2); Dilma 46% (+1) x Aecio 33% (-2)

Official campaigning ended yesterday with the last day of TV campaign for the presidency and for the Chamber, and with the final presidential debate, in TV Globo, by far the most important of the debates. Dilma is a weak debater who reads 99% of her remarks, and was the preferential target of most candidates, so we'll see if this debate has any effect.

Time for predictions!

Here's mine:

Dilma Rousseff 44.5%
Marina Silva 26.5%
Aécio Neves 23%
Luciana Genro 2%
Pastor Everaldo 1.5%
Eduardo Jorge 1%
Levy Fidelix 0.5%
Others 1%

I'll watch the debate that took place yesterday. If I like Luciana more, my vote goes for her. If I like Jorge more, he'll get my vote. (My vote and my mother's vote.)

Prediction
Dilma: 47.3%
Aécio: 25.3%
Marina: 22.8%
All of others: 4.6% (order: Luciana Genro, Everaldo, Eduardo Jorge, Fidelix, Zé Maria, Eymael, Iasi, Costa Pimenta)
My votes:
President: Dilma (PT)
Governor: Renata Mallet (PSTU)
Senator: Otto Alencar (PSD)
Federal legislator: Amauri Teixeira (PT)
State legislator: Angelo Almeida (PT)
If Brazil had alternate vote for president, I'd vote in that order:
1. Luciana Genro
2. Dilma Rousseff
3. Rui Costa Pimenta
4. Mauro Iasi
5. Zé Maria
6.Levy Fidelix (even if he's homophobic, I like his retoric against banks and populism)
7. Eduardo Jorge (my problem with him is running-mate Celia Sacramento who supports ACM Neto's gang in Bahia)
8. Eymael
9. Marina
10. Aécio
11. Everaldo (i don't like his neoliberal and social conservative rhetoric).

My prediction

Dilma: 44.7%
Aécio: 25.8%
Marina: 25.1%
Rev. Everaldo: 1.5%
Eduardo Jorge: 1.2%
Luciana Genro: 1%
Others: 0.8%

Governor races:

São Paulo: Alckmin (PSDB) wins in the 1st round
Rio de Janeiro: Runoff between Pezão (PMDB) and Garotinho (PR)
Minas Gerais: Pimentel (PT) wins in the 1st round
Espírito Santo: Hartung (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Paraná: Richa (PSDB) wins in the 1st round
Santa Catarina: Colombo wins in the 1st round
Rio Grande do Sul: Runoff between T. Genro (PT) and Sartori (PMDB)
Bahia: Souto (DEM) wins in the 1st round
Sergipe: Barreto (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Alagoas: Renan Filho (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Pernambuco: Camara (PSB) wins in the 1st round
Paraíba: Runoff between Cunha Lima (PSDB) and Coutinho (PSB)
Rio Grande do Norte: Alves (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Ceará: Eunicio Oliveira (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Piauí: Dias (PT) wins in the 1st round
Maranhão: Dino (PCdoB) wins in the 1st round
Pará: Jatene (PSDB) wins in the 1st round
Amazonas: Braga (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Amapá: Runoff between Goes (PDT) and Capiberibe (PSB)
Roraima: Runoff between Rodrigues (PSB) and Suely Campos (PP)
Acre: Runoff between T. Viana (PT) and Bittar (PSDB)
Rondonia: Runoff between Confucio Moura (PMDB) and Expedito Jr. (PSDB)
Tocantins: Marcelo Miranda (PMDB) wins in the 1st round
Mato Grosso: Taques (PDT) wins in the 1st round
Mato Grosso do Sul: Runoff between Delcidio Amaral (PT) and Azambuja (PSDB)
Goiás: Runoff between Perillo (PSDB) and Iris Rezende (PMDB)
Federal District: Runoff between R. Rollemberg (PSB) and J. Frejat (PR)

Races in the largest states are now way too tied to the national race. There used to be many competitive candidates for Governor back in the 90s, so a 1st round win was rare. Now competitive candidates for Governor build gigantic coalitions and a runoff only happens when there's a really strong 3rd candidate.

Smaller states still tend to be more influenced by local politics, though.

I decided to vote for Eduardo Jorge in the first round, and for Dilma Rousseff only in the second round, no matter if the opponent is Aécio Neves or Marina Silva.

I am against protest vote, and that's why I don't vote for Luciana Genro. But in the last days, Eduardo Jorge ran a serious campaign. I liked many of his proposals.

I will write the numbers of my predictions only tommorow evening, after the last polls. But I think that Aécio Neves will go to the second round. He performed much better than Dilma Roussef and Marina Silva.

Concerning the state elections, I think that Padilha and Lindberg will have a much better result than they polling now. Dilma has 35% in Rio de Janeiro. Many Dilma voters will vote for Pezão, Garotinho and Crivella, but I think that many Dilma voters who have not decided yet the vote for governor will decide to vote for the candidate of the same party. Considering that Dilma has 25% in São Paulo and Padilha has only 11%, I think that also in São Paulo there is room for Padilha to grow in the eve of the election.
Many people decide for whom they will vote for president many months before the election, and decide for whom they will vote for governor only few days before. In São Paulo in 1998, 2002, 2006 the polls were predicting that the PT candidate for governor would have a much worse result than Lula, and than, the PT candidate for governor used to finish only a little bit worse than Lula.

While I expect Padilha to perform better than he's polling, he has a huge problem which is his rejection rate. 20% of PT voters say they'd never vote for him according to Datafolha. Plus, Alckmin has high approval ratings among poorer voters that usually vote PT. It's not impossible, but a runoff at this moment when the electoral campaign has ended seems unlikely.

I think Padilha will gain specially from Skaf on election day. Skaf has many unstable votes on the Greater São Paulo area that could flock to Padilha with the strong ground support the PT usually has in the area. 73% of Skaf voters don't know the number of their candidate, a pretty strong indication that the numbers Skaf has been showing could decline on election day. Skaf also has a big problem which is the fact that he was abandoned by most PMDB Mayors of the State, who're now endorsing Alckmin. A similar phenomenon happened in 2010, when Saturday polls showed Russomano with 10% and Mercadante with 30%. The day after, Russomano finished with 5%, and probably most of these votes flocked to Mercadante. That's the difference the grassroots can make.

But let's wait until tomorrow to make safer statements.

I learned in this forum that there is a big coincidence. Bulgaria will also hold elections tomorrow. Bulgaria is the home of the Rousseff family. So, in this year, the bulgarians are not watching Brazilian elections, as they were in 2010.

Polling times tomorrow:

8 AM Brasília Time (12 PM GMT, 7 AM EST) - Polls open in most states.
9 AM Brasília Time (1 PM GMT, 8 AM EST) - Polls open in Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima and most of Amazonas.
10 AM Brasília Time (2 PM GMT, 9 AM EST) - Polls open in Acre and Western Amazonas.

5 PM Brasília Time (9 PM GMT, 4 PM EST) - Polls close in most states. Exit polls for those state races are released. Ballots from those states start being counted, those from state races start being released.
6 PM Brasília Time (10 PM GMT, 5 PM EST) - Polls close in Mato Groso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima and most of Amazonas. Exit polls for those state races (except Amazonas) are released. Ballots from those states start being counted, those from state races start being released (exept Amazonas).
7 PM Brasília Time (11 PM GMT, 6 PM EST) - Polls close in the entire country. The national exit poll is released. Ballots from the national race start being released.

Some states are very quick with the electronic counting, among them Paraná, Santa Catarina and Espírito Santo. São Paulo is usually among the slowest. Anyway, no matter how tight the race is, by midnight tomorrow we'll most likely know the outcome of all races.

According to both IBOPE and Datafolha, AECIO HAS MADE IT! He's now at least 2% ahead of Marina. It's still within the margin of error, though.

The polls already consider valid votes.

IBOPE:

Dilma Rousseff (PT): 46%
Aécio Neves (PSDB): 27%
Marina Silva (PSB): 24%
Others: 3%

Datafolha:

Dilma Rousseff (PT): 44%
Aécio Neves (PSDB): 26%
Marina Silva (PSB): 24%
Others: 6%

Datafolha predicts the following runoff between Dilma x Aecio: Dilma 48% x Aecio 42% (53% x 47% on valid votes). Geraldo Alckmin was never this close to Lula in 2006, José Serra was never this close to Dilma in 2010. PSDBists will be hugely motivated now.

It would be a big anticlimax with Aécio/Dilma now.

Didn't Marina massively overperform her polling in 2010? Could the same thing happen tomorrow?

Back in 2010, both Serra and Marina overperformed their polling by 2% on election day. It was Dilma's percentage that was massively overestimated.

Serra actually tied Dilma in some polls.

That was very early on. When the official campaign started Dilma was already ahead by a good margin. On the eve of the 1st round Dilma was 10 points ahead Serra. Serra tightened a little bit on the following week but Dilma soon recovered.

Dilma had a massive surge after start of free TV airtime. Dilma got 55% in some polls, but after Erenice Guerra's scandal (Dilma's trusted right-hand at government)...
Breaking in my state:
Paulo Souto  DEM): 36%
Rui Costa (PT): 36%
Lidice (PSB): 4%
Another 3 candidates: 1% each

My prediction is not based on the national Ibope poll, but on the 27 state Ibope polls, weighted according to the population of each state. I considered that all the "undecided" voters will vote for Aécio Neves, because he is on a growing trend. The prediction is

Dilma Rousseff 43.6%
Aécio Neves 28.3%
Marina Silva 23.9%
Others 4.2%

In the "others", probably Luciana Genro will win and Eduardo Jorge, Pastor Everaldo and Levy Fidelix will be tied.

I showed the table of the calculation in my blog
http://blogdomarcelobrito.blogspot.com.br/2014/10/projecao-do-resultado-do-primeiro-turno.html

Damn. I was gearing up for Dilma v. Marina runoff. That would be really interesting :(

Wait, what ?

Last time I checked (which was a month or 2 ago) Silva was easily making the run-off and was even tied with Rousseff.

And now she's even struggling to come in 2nd ?

What the hell happened ?

Details of the Datafolha poll October 4th

All: Dilma 40%, Aécio 24%, Marina 22%

Age
16-24: Dilma 36%, Aécio 24%, Marina 25%
25-34: Dilma 38%, Aécio 22%, Marina 26%
35-44: Dilma 43%, Aécio 22%, Marina 21%
45-59: Dilma 42%, Aécio 25%, Marina 20%
60-: Dilma 42%, Aécio 27%, Marina 19%

Grade of school
Elementary: Dilma 50%, Aécio 19%, Marina 18%
High School: Dilma 38%, Aécio 24%, Marina 24%
College: Dilma 26%, Aécio 34%, Marina 26%

Household Income
Less than 2 minimum wages: Dilma 49%, Aécio 17%, Marina 20%
Between 2 and 5 minimum wages: Dilma 37%, Aécio 26%, Marina 24%
Between 5 and 10 minimum wages: Dilma 28%, Aécio 33%, Marina 25%
More than 10 minimum wages: Dilma 24%, Aécio 41%, Marina 25%
One minimum wage in Brazil ~ US$300 monthly

Region
Southeast: Dilma 32%, Aécio 27%, Marina 25%
South: Dilma 38%, Aécio 32%, Marina 15%
Northeast: Dilma 55%, Aécio 13%, Marina 21%
Center-West: Dilma 33%, Aécio 32%, Marina 23%
North: Dilma 47%, Aécio 22%, Marina 20%

Very bad campaign. She tried to show to the anti-Dilma voters that she would have more chances to win against Dilma in the runoff, but she never convinced these voters why would she be a better presidente than Aécio Neves.

Just voted with my mum. She knows nothing about Brazil politics since she came to Spain... And I was undecided between Jorge and Genro... So the solution was: I voted for Jorge and she voted for Genro! As simple as that hahahaha..

Several problems being reported on polling stations that are adopting the new fingerprint ID system.

There's an exit poll being spread on the Twitter, which says Dilma 52%, Aécio 22%, Marina 21%... It may be a hoax, but there are other users saying the CNN exit poll has Dilma winning with 55%.

Does anyone have any Brazil TV links which can be watched online from abroad?

Thanks!

Try GloboNews: http://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2014/cobertura-votacao-apuracao.html

Most polls close in 10 minutes. I'll be posting all exit polls once they close so be prepared for many posts.

Once polls close follow the results here: http://divulga.tse.jus.br/oficial/index.html

According to IBOPE Alckmin will likely be reelected Governor of São Paulo with 52% of the valid votes. Padilha grows a lot and finishes only 2% behind Skaf, with 20%.

According to O Globo, Aécio Neves won among Brazilian residents in Israel.

Aécio got 142 votes (69%), Marina 36 (17%) and Dilma 15 (7%). Luciana Genro and Eduardo Jorge got 4 and 3 votes, respectively.

Hundreds of Brazilian electors voted in Ramallah, but results haven't been publicised.

In Rio, IBOPE says Pezão (34%) and Garotinho (28%) will face-off in a runoff.

SP-Senate, exit poll

Serra (PSDB) - 49%
Suplicy (PT) - 34%
Kassab (PSD) - 9%

In Minas Gerais, IBOPE claims Fernando Pimentel (PT) has been elected with 53% of the votes. Pimenta da Veiga (PSDB) reaches 37%

RJ-Senate, exit poll

Romário (PSB) – 62%
Cesar Maia (DEM) – 22%
Liliam Sá (PROS) – 6%

Is it me or PT candidates seem to overperform their polling scores ?

Federal District: Rodrigo Rollemberg (44%) and Jofran Frejat (29%) go to the runoff. Incumbent Agnelo Queiroz gets only 21%.

Only Padilha so far. Pimentel underperformed by 8% according to IBOPE.

Edit: Rui Costa also overperformed.

Bahia: Rui Costa (PT) passes Paulo Souto and is very close to election at 49%. Paulo Souto (DEM) falls to 39%.

Ceará: Eunício Oliveira (PMDB) is very close to being elected as well, with 49%. Camilo Santana (PT) gets 44% and may force a runoff.

Pernambuco: No surprises as Paulo Camara (PSB) should be elected with 58% of the votes in Eduardo Campos' state. Armando Monteiro (PTB), who once led, gets 38%.

Paraná: Beto Richa is probably going to be reelected with 55%. Former Governor Requião gets 27%, Gleisi Hoffman 14%.

Rio Grande do Sul: Tarso Genro (PT) makes it to the runoff in his reelection bid at 35%. José Ivo Sartori (PMDB) reaches 29% and likely takes down former leader Ana Amélia, who's at 26% making the runoff as well.

In Senate races, the only big changes are Fernando Bezerra Coelho (PSB) winning against João Paulo (PT), and Otto Alencar (PSD) taking down Geddel Vieira (PMDB), who was favored early on.

What's the threshold to make it into the runoff ?

The leader can't get more than 50%.

You mean that if no one gets to 50%, every one can run in the runoff ? It's not just the two leading candidates of first round, or anyone with more than 10% ?

The runoff is the top two.

The Federal District has already counted more than 20% of its polls. It's clear Rollemberg (PSB) and Frejat (PR) made it to the runoff. With about 45% and very low rejection rates, Rollemberg will be favored in a runoff, where Agnelo's votes should migrate to him.

Brazil's Federal District has a LONG history of corruption, so Rollemberg's "freshness" may be welcome to voters there.

In Pará's gubernatorial race, Helder Barbalho (PMDB-PT), the son of infamously corrupt senator Jader Barbalho, leads the PSDB governor 51-47 with about 6.6% reporting.

In Maranhão, according to polls earlier this week and early results, Flavio Dino (PCdoB) is on the verge of taking down the Sarney clan who has directly or indirectly governed that state for some 60 years or so.

With over 30% of the polls counted and exit poll results, I'm calling Paraná for Beto Richa (PSDB). A gigantic win for him, who was seen as in trouble since 2012. No one expected him to win in a 1st round. If Aecio doesn't win the presidency, Richa will certainly be in the game for 2018.

PS: Congrats to Richa. I really like him and feel he has a bright future. He ran a great campaign and his slogan was perfect and captured voters - Paraná que acredita (Paraná believes, in English).

Also in Paraná, Sen. Alvaro Dias (PSDB) will be reelected in the biggest landslide of the year, possibly with over 75% of the votes. If he weren't 70 years old, he'd be the automatic candidate for the Government of Paraná in 2018.

Also noteworthy, Fr. Senator Tasso Jereissati (PSDB) has completed his comeback and will be elected Senator in Ceará. He was one of the biggest political foes of Lula during Lula's term, and Lula personally ensued Jereissati wouldn't be reelected in 2010.  Jereissati retired from politics at first, but then decided to go back after Aecio asked him, and it worked out beautifully. Jereissati will also be important because he's one of the great PSDB gurus who can give some cohesion to the party.

Fr. Governor Paulo Hartung (PMDB) will take back his old job in Espírito Santo from incumbent Governor Renato Casagrande (PSB), who fails to win reelection. Casagrande's failed reelection bid is a huge disappointment for his party.

With over 50% of the votes counted in Rio Grande do Sul, José Ivo Sartori (PMDB) confirms his amazing performance and there's a big chance he'll finish the 1st round ahead Tarso Genro (PT). Ana Amelia's votes will likely migrate to Sartori. Sartori is the typical "gaúcho", and that definitely helped him connect with voters.

Where can I find live presidential results?

http://divulga.tse.jus.br/oficial/index.html

Click at the small Brazil map in half an hour. Polls haven't closed in Acre and western Amazonas yet.

Paleo, many thanks for all the updates, really appreciate!

Why is the count in RJ so slow?

Site says 0.0% counted v 46.8% for SP, ES is 96%!!

Huge trouble with the fingerprint system in Rio. This will be a huge hit to the reliability of the electronic ballot.

Jesus, Serra is delivering quite the smacking to Suplicy right now.

Sad and amazing at the same time.

PT is overperforming in many state races (but not in RS). Let's see if Dilma manages to overperform, too. I hope she doesn't, I want to vote again! But, TBH, I won't b too upset if she does.

Thanks Paleo - with the problems in Rio, no-one's going to be raising the spectre of electoral fraud, are they? Hopefully not...!

Complaints about trouble using the ballot increased significantly this year. Of course, social networks have a relevant weight here.

National exit poll coming in seconds!

National exit poll:

Dilma: 44%
Aecio: 30%
Marina: 22%
L. Genro: 2%
Rev. Feliciano: 1%
Others: 1%

Aecio closes very strongly.

I hope you mean Pastor Everaldo :p

And Alckmin with Skaf. Muito bem. :P

I really do hope Aecio can go all the away. Brazil needs it, that's for sure.

I beg your pardon.

With nearly 70% of the votes counted Alckmin has nearly 58% of the votes and I'm calling the election for him. Padilha has 17.5% of the votes, so he's definitely overperformed, but on the expense of Skaf, not Alckmin, as I predicted yesterday.

With 75% of the votes counted Dilma has 40% and Aecio 35%!!!!!

What a shame. A Dilma/Marina runoff would have been so much more interesting...

With nearly 90% of the votes counted in Rio de Janeiro Crivella is ahead of Garotinho on the battle for the runoff against Pimentel. IBOPE has made some serious mistakes on their exit polls this year.

Wow.  With 79% in it is about the same.  Any insight on the nature of the 21% that did not report in yet?  Aecio's momentum last few days is quite impressive.  And just think, he was left for dead just a few weeks ago.

Most are in the North-Northeast area where the margin should widen a little bit in Dilma's favor. But there's no denying, there was a significant swing from both Dilma and Marina to Aecio. For the 1st time in 12 years, the PSDB actually has a chance of winning the runoff against the PT.

Aecio desperately needs help on the Northeast, though.

In retrospect I think once the polls shows that Dilma would most likely lose in the second round starting a week or two ago, the anti-Dilma vote went over to Aecio.  That Dilma under-performed both polls and exit polls should have PT very concerned.

Did the exit polls ask hypothetical match-ups between the three front runners in the second round ?

Brazil's "Bin Laden" arrested for campaigning at polls

Oct. 5 (AFP) -- A candidate running for the Amazonia state assembly in northern Brazil under the monicker Osama Bin Laden was detained during Sunday's vote for illegal campaigning outside the local polls, electoral officials said.
'Bin Laden', real name Manoel Nunes de Assis, was standing for the tiny centrist National Labor Party (PTN).
Clad in a tunic similar to that worn by the Al-Qaeda mastermind killed in a US raid in Pakistan three years ago, Nunes was arrested in regional capital, Manaus, as he urged voters to cast their ballots while handing out bottles of water, and hauled off to the regional electoral court for questioning.
"He was stood in the doorway on the pretext of selling water while approaching people and asking for votes," the G1 web portal quoted electoral magistrate Henrique Veiga as saying.
Electoral rules allow candidates to stand under whatever name they choose and this year has seen an imaginative crop, including Wonder Woman and Rambo, while a handful also stood as Barack Obama.
Nunes, one of three candidates named Bin Laden standing in Sunday's presidential and legislative elections, faces being removed from the race if he is found to have violated election rules.
The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had detained 551 people in all, including 55 candidates, for various indiscretions nationwide an hour before polls closed at 2000 GMT in most of Brazil's 27 states.
In the last national elections four years ago, a Sao Paulo clown named Tiririca (Grumpy) ran for Congress on the campaign slogan "It can't get any worse."
He won the most votes of any congressional candidate in the country, 1.3 million, and had to learn to write his name to start his new job.
He's also standing again.

No, unfortunately.

But looking at how badly IBOPE polled São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul today, perhaps not running such a poll was a good idea.

Anywhere we can see live results by regional breakdown?

http://placar.eleicoes.uol.com.br/2014/1turno/ac/

Here in São Paulo Celso Russomano (PRB) is getting over 1.3 million votes running for the Chamber. He'll be a very strong candidate for Mayor of São Paulo in 2016, specially considering the weak approvals of current Mayor Fernando Haddad (PT).

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2014/10/1527715-comite-petista-ja-cogita-aceno-de-dilma-a-marina.shtml

Google translate is not that that great.  But from I can gather from this, Rousseff’s PT considers approaching silva

Well, at least with Collor's reelection in Alagoas there's something to celebrate about.

Exactly. That's not a bad bet, considering the PSB has a strong "old left" wing which is still very close to the PT. The "new left" of the PSB would probably prefer going with the PSDB.

Then again, Marina is not from the PSB. And Dilma slammed Marina so hard that I doubt her pride will allow her making mends with Dilma.

Not only Alckmin has been reelected, he also elected a gigantic number of Federal and State Congressmen. Look out, Congressmen like Bruno Covas and Carlos Sampaio and State Congressmen like Fernando Capez are a huge part of the future of the PSDB.

Carlos Kawall, former secretary of the Treasury now Banco J.safara economist, seems to indicate that Neves has a chance to win on second round with such a first round differential.  

Yeah, what Alckmin did for the future of the PSDB today is just incredible. If Aécio doesn't win this election, I'm almost sure Alckmin will be their candidate in 2018 now.

Looks like the results will be Rousseff 41% Neves 34%

Having a quick scout around some of the state results for President, does anyone have any idea why Silva increased by 30 points in Pernambuco to win the state, but fell back 6 points in the Federal District?

Are there any other states where the R1 2014 result is vastly different to R1 2010?

Very broadly, we're looking at a swing of about 3 points from the PT to the PSDB?

Thanks

To your first question: the answer is Eduardo Campos.
To your 2nd question: Acre, DF, Pernambuco.
To your 3rd question: I think so.

As more polls are counted in the Northeast Aecio drops to 33,96%. Getting Marina's support will be crucial for him. Fernando Henrique Cardoso has personally taken on this challenge.

Runoff prediction time!


Aécio: 50%
Dilma: 46%

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December 31, 2014

(Brasília) President-elect Aécio Neves (PSDB-Minas) suddenly died on eve of his inauguration, after a two-months wild spree of celebrating his election. No official determination was made, but the source close to the PSDB headquarters indicates Aécio's ego exploded, rupturing his inside. Poor man had no chance, the source commented.

Vice President-elect Aloysio Nunes (PSDB-São Paulo) is set to fill Aécio's term instead.

Speaking of his longtime political mentor's passing, Senator Antonio Anastasia recalled: Aécio always wanted to be just like his grandpa.

Should not the vote shares of the two add up to 100% by definition.

Aren't blank votes counted?

No.

Aecio Neves gets his first important endorsement: Jarbas Vasconcelos (PMDB-PE). He'll try to convince Marina to join Aecio.

 
                     Dilma       Aécio       Marina      Counted
                     Rousseff    Neves       Silva       votes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall:             41%         34%         21%         98%
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Acre                 31%         31%         37%         57%
Alagoas             53%         21%         24%         82%
Amapá               51%         26%         20%         99%
Amazonas          54%         20%         22%         99%
Bahia                61%         18%         19%         92%
Ceará                68%         15%         14%         99%
Espírito Santo     33%         35%         29%         100%
Goiás                32%         42%         24%         100%
Maranhão          69%         12%         17%         99%
Mato Grosso       39%         45%         14%         98%
Mato Grossol      38%         19%         41%         100%
       do Su
Minas Gerais      44%         40%         14%         99%
Pará                  53%         28%         16%         98%
Paraíba              56%         23%         19%         99%
Paraná               33%         50%         14%         100%
Pernambuco       44%         6%          48%         94%
Piauí                  71%         14%         14%         90%
Rio de Janeiro     36%         27%         31%         100%
Rio Grande         61%         20%         17%         91%
     do Norte
Rio Grande        43%         41%         12%         100%
     do Sul
Rondônia            42%         45%         10%         99%
Roraima             34%         44%         18%         87%
Santa Catarina    31%         53%         13%         100%
São Paulo           26%         44%         25%         98%
Sergipe              55%         23%         19%         98%
Tocantins           50%         28%         21%         100%
Exterior             19%         49%         26%         95%
 

Marina Silva has started her concession speech.

In the end all Silva got was barely better than 2010 and she had the advantage of PSB being behind her.  This feels a lot like the UK Liberal Democrats of 2010. 

It's noteworthy that minor candidates grew up a lot this year. Luciana Genro (PSOL), Eduardo Jorge (PV), Rev. Everaldo (PSC) and Levy Fidelix combined for over 3% of the votes.

It looks like Neves is already trying to butter up Silva in his speech.

My understanding was that Rousseff was able to unleash a large media attack on Silva which now it seems to have worked, perhaps too well.  This seems only possible with a large financial advantage of the Rousseff campaign.  I wonder if she can replicate this against Neves.  What is the financial resource gap between Rousseff and Neves ?

Aecio actually can fundraise more than Dilma. He's the candidate of the financial market.

Here's the political map of São Paulo. Alckmin has carried all cities of the state and most of them with over 50% of the votes.

()

Edit: Alckmin has lost ONE city on the entire State, the city of Hortolândia, a small, working class city on the Greater Campinas area that usually votes PT. Padilha won there.

Where did you get that map?

Yes.  I know.  But incumbency has to count for something as well in terms of financial resources.  That is why I asked the question. 

In a bad sign for Rousseff, Silva seems to indicate that the vote is a vote against the the current government. 

Estadão is doing all maps:

http://politica.estadao.com.br/eleicoes/2014/apuracao/governador/sp

i have to believe that this result is positive for the markets.  IBOVESPA and in fact the entire emerging market sector should do well tomorrow.

Marina's leading economist, Eduardo Giannetti, has endorsed Aecio.

According to PSDB leaders the 1st rally of the runoff will be realized in Pernambuco, and there's a chance Marina will endorse Aecio there.

PSDB has elected 54 Congressmen, 8 more than was believed yesterday, 10 more than currently. 14 of the 70 Congressmen São Paulo elected are from the PSDB - Alckmin's coattails, of course. That is huge for the PSDB. No matter what happens in the runoff, they'll be stronger for the next 4 years.

The PT has likely shrunk to 70 Congressmen, a huge 18 member loss. São Paulo put a huge drag on the PT here.

PMDB also shrinks, to 66 Congressmen, from 73.

Another loser in Congress is Gilberto Kassab and his PSD. Not only he failed miserably on his Senate bid, his party lost 7 seats in Congress, and will now have 38 Congressmen.

Thanks to Marina Silva the PSB gains 9 seats and will now have 34 seats in the Chamber.

The huge fragmentation of parties over the last few years makes the Chamber elected today a hugely split one. It'll be hard for both Dilma and Aecio to have a reliable majority here. Dilma has had tons of trouble working with the Congress during her term. FHC and Lula used to deal much better with the Congress.