Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff formally launched her re-election bid on Saturday, leading in opinion polls despite lingering discontent over FIFA World Cup costs. Rousseff’s leftist Workers Party (PT) approved her candidacy in a voice vote of 800 members meeting at a convention in Brasilia, with popular former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on hand.
“It is time to move forward; it is time to make more changes,” the 66-year-old leader told her party in a hotel convention hall decorated with red stars and posters of the president.
Rousseff’s popularity has fallen, but she leads her rivals ahead of the October presidential election, with 39 percent of voters backing her candidacy, a survey by pollsters CNI Ibope showed on Thursday.
The former member of guerrilla groups who was jailed and tortured for two years during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, is well ahead of Brazilian Social Democratic Party Senator Aecio Neves, with 21 percent, and socialist former Pernambuco governor Eduardo Campos, a former ally, with 10 percent.
The convention turned into a defense of the World Cup, with promises of changes in a new Rousseff administration following protests over hosting the tournament that began on June 12 and runs until July 13.
Party members chanted “one, two, three, Dilma one more time” and “Lula, warrior of the Brazilian people.”
“The World Cup is scoring goals against the pessimists, those who said it would not take place,” Rousseff said.
Some voices within the party called on Lula to run for president as Rousseff’s popularity fell, but the former leader, who left office with an 80 percent approval rating, has backed his successor.
“Many people have this feeling, but everything has its moment. Lula himself told us that she was the candidate. It is important we vote for her,” said Nadia Araujo, 47, a PT member who was unable to enter the packed convention.
Brazilians held massive demonstrations during last year’s Confederations Cup, a warmup to the main football event, to protest the World Cup’s estimated US$11 billion price tag and demand better public services.
The public frustration coincides with a cooling economy.
Once boasting red-hot growth, Brazil’s GDP rose by just 0.2 percent in the first quarter and is forecast to expand by 1.63 percent this year.
However, the protest movement has lost some steam, drawing smaller crowds during the World Cup, but with sporadic clashes between riot police and masked radical protesters.
The anger seeped into the opening game as a crowd of fans chanted insults against Rousseff when she attended the match between Brazil and Croatia with a dozen foreign leaders.
Lula, who secured the World Cup when he was president between 2003 and 2010, defended the tournament, saying the stadiums exceeded expectations.
For her part, Rousseff renewed her call for a referendum on a reform of the political system, one of the protesters’ demands.
She listed the social, economic and political actions taken by her government and said Brazilians want changes to continue “in the hands of those who showed that they have the capacity” to undertake them.
Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer of the center-left PMDB party also attended the convention.
However, another ally, the Brazilian Labor Party, confirmed it was now backing Neves.
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