Brazilian elections

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

These are coming up in October I think.

From what I understand despite a rather recent upswing of serious gang violence in Sao Paulo, Lula is pretty safe for a second term. Basically if he doesn't seriously screw anything up, he wins. This guy will likely be his main opponent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldo_Alckmin

I don't know about the legislature since they got a million parties and half of them have way different ideologies than the name implies. What's the balance there now and what's likely to change?

[useful idiot]

Alckmin's support is all in the southeast(the rich areas) of the country, esp. SP, where he was the governor. He was leading in Sao Paulo not too long ago by a pretty big margin. It's the most populated state. I don't think Lula is as safe as you think, but he is definitely favored. Alckmin will syphon off disgruntled middle class center-leftists and take the traditional conservative vote(the latter more so than Serra). It's going to be a far  tighter affair this time, but Lula gets enough supprt in other places to win. Brazilians are very big on following the crowd, so if there is a swing anywhere near the election it will be a big one. Take for instance the gun legislation from a while back. Something like 60% favored it, then it switched to about 65-70% opposing it in a very short time. If Brazilians see other people supporting a guy, they'll do the same. That's why the country isn't very polarized at all. As far as legislative elections go, the PT won't come out on top unless something major happens. There's almost no doubt about that in anyone's mind here. Alckmin's relative popularity will mean a gain for the PSDB, probably not that large though. I'll try to find some stuff in Portuguese to translate.

[useful idiot]

This is a Datafolha poll from a couple of days ago

Lula(PT, left wing): 46
Alckmin(PSDB, centrist, leans right): 29
Helena(ex PT, far left Trotskyite): 6
Other: 3
Intend to leave their ballot blank: 7
Don't Know: 9

This is a 7 point leap in the last month for Alckmin and 1 point for Lula going by this pollster.