Brazil’s presidential contenders gear up for the final battle
Brazilian President and presidential candidate for the Workers Party, Dilma Rousseff waves as she delivers a speech in Brasilia on October 5, 2014, after general elections. Rousseff will face Social Democrat Aecio Neves in a run-off election, leaving popular environmentalist Marina Silva out of the race. PHOTO | AFP
BRASILIA, Brazil, Sunday
Leftist incumbent Dilma Rousseff and Social Democratic challenger Aecio Neves are fighting to break a statistical tie in the polls a week out from next Sunday’s presidential runoff.
The contest has developed into the closest-fought in a generation as Neves, scion of a political dynasty, looks to unseat Rousseff, whose Workers Party (PT) has been in power for 12 years.
Having unexpectedly thrashed environmentalist Marina Silva in the first round, Neves, former governor of southern Minas Gerais state, has his nose just in front, polls say.
But his advantage going into this weekend was wafer-thin at 51 per cent to 49, leaving him and Rousseff in a virtual dead heat.
The past week has seen Neves 54, and Ms Rousseff, 66, engage in caustic debate with both accusing the other of lying and turning a blind eye to graft, a key issue in the debate amid a kickbacks scandal involving oil giant Petrobras.
While insisting he will keep in place extensive PT welfare reform programs after they pulled millions out of poverty in the past decade, Neves has accused Rousseff’s administration of failing on the economy by leading it into recession this year.
Rousseff’s four years have been marked by low growth which had raced ahead under predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
With the Petrobras scandal also haunting her administration — though his own party has not escaped allegations of wrongdoing — Neves insists that “Brazil cannot take another four years of misgovernment on this scale.”
Rousseff fired back by unsubtly referring to 2011 reports of Neves refusing to take a breathalyzer test and insisting that his party, which ruled Brazil for eight years before Lula triumphed in 2002, would seek to unpick the welfare reforms which have won international renown.
“My government will care for all Brazilians, in contrast to the previous one (of 1995-2002 Social Democrat (PSDB) president Fernando Henrique Cardoso) which only served the elite,” trumpeted Ms Rousseff, who polled eight per cent more than her rival in the October 5 first round.
