After a presidential campaign steeped in drama, Brazilians opted on Sunday for a relatively staid runoff election featuring the two parties that have governed for the past 20 years.
Frustrated with an economic slowdown and corrupt politicians, voters flirted for weeks with Brazilian Socialist Party candidate Marina Silva’s promise of a “new politics,” but ultimately relegated the popular environmentalist to third place, dashing her hopes of becoming Brazil’s first black president.
In the end, political analysts said, it was not Silva, but business favorite Aecio Neves, a lifelong member of the political elite, whose momentum impressed on election day and put him through to the second round with incumbent Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Oct. 26.
“Neves, who looked condemned to the shadows a month ago in the face of Silva and Rousseff’s dominance in the polls, arose from the ashes and surprised with a much better score than expected,” Andre Cesar of consultancy Prospectiva said. “That means he arrives much stronger for the second round, which will be fought vote by vote.”
Rousseff, whose Workers’ Party (PT) has governed for the past 12 years, finished with 42 percent of the first-round vote. Neves, whose Social Democrats (PSDB) ruled for eight years before that, finished with 34 percent.
Silva’s final total — 21 percent of the vote — was almost 13 percentage points down from her highest poll results early last month. That was just over two weeks after she took the place of late running mate Eduardo Campos following his death in a plane crash.
Rousseff, former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s handpicked successor, now seems poised to keep the PT in office for a fourth term.
“The Brazilian elector wanted to vote for what he knows. The traditional parties came through,” Brasilia University political science professor David Fleischer said.
With Silva out of the race, the chase is now on for the 22 million people who voted for her.
She has not yet endorsed either Rousseff or Neves.
“How Marina Silva’s vote shares out will be key. If her supporters plump for Aecio Neves, he will be in a position to turn things around in his favor in the second round,” Getulio Vargas Foundation analyst Daniel Barcelos Vargas said.
Taken together, the Silva and Neves camps took 55 percent of the vote on Sunday, and polls show that about 60 percent of Silva’s voters will now switch to Neves.
A poll by the Ibope Institute this week showed 39 percent of Brazilians will stay loyal to the PT, but that 33 percent of voters will vote against.
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