Brazil 2014

Presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and state elections were held in Brazil on October 6, 2014, with a presidential and gubernatorial runoffs on October 26, 2014.

No, this blog isn’t dead! This superbly detailed but ridiculously long post took up most of my busy time, preventing me from posting about other elections as I had wished. I hope to cover a few of the elections I have missed. I still welcome guest posts, on any topic and recent election. Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas to all readers, and warm wishes for a happy election-filled New Year 2015.

Political and electoral system

The President of Brazil, the head of state and government of Brazil, is elected directly to a four-year term, renewable once (but with the possibility to run again after leaving office). The President is elected using a two-round system, in which a second round is held three weeks later if no candidate has won an absolute majority in the first round. Presidential candidates select a running-mate, who serves as Vice President in the event of their ticket’s election.

The National Congress of Brazil (Congresso Nacional do Brasil) is a bicameral legislature composed of the 81-member Federal Senate (Senado Federal), which represents the states and the 513-member Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados), which represents the people. In the regular legislative process, both houses have equal powers – meaning that both of them must approve a bill for it to pass, and both houses must vote to override a President’s veto on a bill. Both houses have some reserved powers – for example, the Senate must confirm some presidential appointments and holds impeachment proceedings (which are initiated by the Chamber).

The Senate is composed of 81 senators representing Brazil’s 27 constituent units – 26 states and the Federal District (DF) – with 3 senators for each constituent unit, elected to eight-year terms with no term limits. Senators are elected every four years – two-thirds of the Senate is up for election at one time when each state elects two of its senators, and one-third is up four years later when each state elects one senator. Senators are elected by first past the post.

The Chamber of Deputies has 513 members, supposed to be apportioned between the states on the basis of population, but the Constitution establishes that no state may have more than 70 deputies or less than 8 deputies. This means that there is major misrepresentation in the Chamber, with deputies in the state of São Paulo representing over 570,000 people each while the eight deputies from the smallest state, Roraima, each represent only 53,000 people. Deputies are elected in each state by open-list proportional representation. Voters may vote for a party or a candidate on a party list, with the votes cast for the party directly and all its candidates being added with the seats distributed proportionally. Most Brazilians vote for individual candidates, rather than the party list. The candidates elected are those who have won the largest number of votes for a party. The effect of this electoral system is that political parties seek to maximize their votes, and thus seat count, by running celebrity or star candidates who are able to win a large number of votes. For example, a small party which has a very popular candidate who wins a large number of votes him/herself can drag other party candidates in with him, even if they won very few votes. In 2002, for instance, a small party run by a charismatic and popular leader had their leading poll over 1.5 million votes and therefore elected six seats – including four candidates who had won less than 1,000 votes!

Brazil is a federal state divided into 26 states and one Federal District. The states have power over matters not explicitly forbidden to them in the Constitution. Each state and the DF has a directly-elected Governor, who serves a four-year term renewable once. The Governor, elected on a ticket with a Vice Governor, is elected using a two-round system. The legislative power of each state is vested in a Legislative Assembly (Assembleia Legislativa), with the number of deputies in each state set according to a formula in the Constitution (Article 27). The largest state, São Paulo, elects 94 state deputies; the smallest states have 24 state deputies. Deputies in Legislative Assemblies are known as deputados estaduais (state deputies) or, in the DF, deputados distritais (district deputies) to differentiate them from members of the Chamber of Deputies, who are deputados federais (federal deputies). The DF’s government is organized like a state government, with an elected Governor and state legislature, but the DF has no state constitution and it has the powers of a state and a municipality.

Brazil has a strong and independent judiciary. The Supreme Federal Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal, STF) is the court of last resort with responsibility over constitutional law. It has 11 judges (called ‘ministers’) appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The 33-member Superior Court of Justice (Superior Tribunal de Justiça, STJ) is the highest appellate court for all non-constitutional questions of federal law. Courts have decided on a number of important issues in recent years, including same-sex marriage, but also on electoral matters including the Ficha Limpa law (Clean Slate Law), which renders ineligible for 8 years any candidate whose mandate was revoked, resigned office to escape impeachment or who was convicted by a collective body (the STF ruled in 2011 that the law could not apply to the 2010 elections and ruled it constitutional for future elections in 2012).

Registration and voting is compulsory for all citizens between 18 and 70, excepting the illiterate; registration and voting is voluntary for voters aged 16 to 18 and those over 70. Compulsory voting is enforced, with voters who did not vote being forced to provide adequate justification for not voting within 60 days after the election, or else they are fined. Candidates for any elected office must be registered with a political party (they may not run as an independent), and all candidates for office receive free airtime on radio and TV. While candidates in second rounds have equal airtime, the duration of each candidate’s airtime in the first round is determined by the size and weight of the parties in a candidate’s coalition – meaning that there exists a real incentive for candidates to be supported by a large number of parties, even small ones, in order to increase their airtime.

In order to run for another office, the President, cabinet ministers, governors and mayors must resign from their respective offices at least six months before the election. An incumbent seeking reelection to the same office, however, does not resign, which has sometimes raised questions about incumbents using the advantages of their office and state resources to campaign for reelection.

Although Brazilian political parties play an important role in the political process, many parties in Brazil have little formal ideologies or coherent principles, and function as patronage machines seeking power with little interest in the general ideological direction of the government. Because of legal regulations on free airtime or the number of candidates allowed to run, larger parties have an interest in contracting electoral coalitions with smaller parties – oftentimes the smaller parties are the most venal and corrupt parties – for strategic electoral purposes. Many of these small parties which form coalitions with one another are known as ‘rental parties’ or ‘parties for hire’ (partido de aluguel) meaning that they will sell themselves to the highest bidder when election season rolls around. In return, these ‘parties for hire’ can win seats in Congress and, as it gets a substantial number of seats, its bidding power on the government increases and it gains access to the spoils of power (lucrative posts in public institutions and agencies, government contracts, public works in their state). The harsh and unpleasant reality of Brazilian party politics means that it is very difficult for a politician to be elected to high office without making strategic alliances with these powerful patronage parties.

There are, of course, parties with more coherent ideologies and politicians with principles – although these parties and politicians are forced to deal with the venal parties if they want to get anywhere.

Historical background

In the 2010 elections, Dilma Rousseff was elected President of Brazil as the anointed successor of popular two-term outgoing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), first elected to office in 2002.

Lula was a left-wing trade unionist, who grew up poor in Brazil’s impoverished Nordeste (Northeast) before moving, like many Northeasterners, to São Paulo – Brazil’s economic powerhouse – to work in the factories in São Paulo’s industrial suburbs. He rose through the ranks of the steel workers’ trade unions in São Bernardo do Campo due to his leadership skills and charisma, and gained national prominence due to his leadership in large strikes in favour of workers’ rights during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985). In 1980, Lula led the foundation of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT), a socialist party founded by independent left-wing trade unionists, left-wing intellectuals and Catholics influenced by Liberation Theology and, in 1983, he participated in the foundation of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), a trade union confederation which broke with the corporatist system of labour relations instituted by President Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945, 1951-1954) and practiced by the old varguista Brazilian Labour Party (PTB). The PT became one of the smaller parties which opposed the military regime in its waning years and supported democratization, notably the large-scale Diretas Já campaign for direct presidential elections in 1984. Between 1989 and 2002, Lula lost three successive presidential elections.

After having been ruled by the military since a 1964 coup, Brazil’s transition to democracy was negotiated and controlled by the military regime, beginning with General Ernesto Geisel (President, 1974-1979) policy of distensão, or political opening. Geisel’s successor, General João Figueiredo (1979-1985), decreed a general amnesty in 1979, passed a political reform which ended the rigid two-party system imposed by the military’s Ato Institucional Dos in 1965 (allowing for the registration of parties such as the PT) and allowed for the direct election of state governors in 1982 (the first direct elections of governors since the 1960s, after the regime abolished direct elections of governors in 1966 through AI-3). However, Figueiredo struggled to retain control of the transition process, facing strong pressure from a united and energized opposition movement (led by the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, or PMDB, the successor to the MDB, the sole tolerated legal opposition party to the regime) and reactionary opposition from military intelligence hardliners (linha dura). The Democratic Social Party (PDS), the pro-military party, split over the choice of a presidential successor ahead of the 1984 elections (which would still be indirect, through an electoral college dominated by the PDS, after the failure of the Diretas Já‘s campaign to amend the constitution for immediate direct elections). The PDS nominated Paulo Maluf, the infamously corrupt former ‘bionic’ mayor and governor of São Paulo; a choice which was immediately rejected by Maluf’s opponents including Vice President Aureliano Chaves, former Pernambuco governor Marco Maciel, the very powerful Bahian political boss Antônio Carlos Magalhães (ACM) and Maranhão senator José Sarney. Chaves, ACM and Marco Maciel participated in the foundation of the Liberal Front Party (Partido da Frente Liberal, PFL) and endorsed the opposition candidacy of Tancredo Neves, a veteran moderate opposition politician (who had served under the presidency of Getúlio Vargas and as Prime Minister under João Goulart prior to the 1964 coup) who was spearheading the movement for democratization in Brazil. José Sarney joined the PMDB and was Tancredo Neves’ running-mate, thus forming a broad coalition allying long-time opponents of the regime with defectors from the pro-regime party. Tancredo Neves was elected President by the electoral college, but he was rushed to the hospital on the eve of his inauguration and he died after seven surgical operations a bit over a month later. To allow for a smooth transition, it was agreed that Sarney would be allowed to become President, despite Tancredo never having been inaugurated formally.

Sarney’s government faced, besides the management of the transition and the adoption of the Constitution, hyperinflation. Sarney’s first response, the Cruzado Plan – which included a price and wage freeze, a new currency and a ‘wage trigger’ to automatically adjust wages when inflation reached 20% – was initially very popular, leading to an explosion of consumption and a massive victory for the PMDB in the 1986 elections, but ultimately failed because the price freeze distorted the profit margins of companies, leading to disinvestment and declining production and resulting in a serious supply crisis. The government ran through two other plans to tackle hyperinflation, but both failed. When Sarney left office, he was highly unpopular, seen as corrupt and unable to handle the economy. Nevertheless, Sarney did oversee the adoption of the 1988 Constitution and the restoration of democracy – with universal suffrage, civil and political liberties.

In 1989, the first direct presidential election since the 1964 military coup, Lula placed second in the first round with 16.1% and went on to face Fernando Collor de Mello, a young and suave populist-conservative governor of Alagoas (a small state in the Nordeste) who ran a very anti-Sarney campaign. In a dirty runoff campaign in which Collor was openly favoured by the powerful Globo media empire, Lula’s image as an angry radical worried conservative voters throughout the country and he was ultimately defeated by Collor, 49.4% to 44.2%. Collor took office as Brazil was facing hyperinflation. Collor quickly adopted drastic measures to fight inflation by aiming to sharply cut the amount of money in circulation. His Plano Collor included the introduction of (yet another) new currency, an 18-month freeze in all overnight deposits over US$1,300, a tax on financial transactions (stock shares, gold and financial titles), a price and wage freeze, an increase in utility prices, the dismissal of 360,000 public employees, exchange rate liberalization, elimination of tax incentives, abolition of several government institutes and Collor’s government promised wide-reaching neoliberal reforms to the economy including privatization and deregulation. Inflation did fall from 2947% in 1990 to 477% in 1991, but the Plano Collor’s initial success proved fleeting and inflation shot up again – to 1022% in 1992. In 1991 and 1992, Collor’s government was hit by an avalanche of revelations which showed that PC Farias, Collor’s sketchy campaign treasurer, was running a huge corruption scheme and embezzling millions in public monies by manipulating public contracts. In late September 1992, the Chamber achieved more than the two-thirds majority required to suspend Collor from office and Collor resigned at the end of the year hours before the Senate voted on his removal from office – which it ended up doing anyway.

His Vice President, Itamar Franco – a rather odd and erratic personality – needed to deal with the crisis of hyperinflation. Facing a real social and economic crisis, with inflation roaring at over 2075% in 1994, Itamar turned, in May 1993, to Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a prominent academic and sociologist exiled during most of the military regime. FHC took a gamble and presented an ambitious plan with the potential for high rewards but huge risks: the Plano Real. His plan cut public spending (by forcing Congress to kill its pork-barreling habits), increased tax collection, cracked down on tax evasion, required heavily indebted states to pay off their debts to the federal government and introduced the Unidade Real de Valor, a non-monetary reference currency (mandatory conversion of values) designed to break the psychological inertia of Brazilian inflation and ease the transition to the introduction of the Brazilian real on July 1, 1994. The Plano Real was a real success – inflation dropped from 46.6% to 6.1% between June and July 1994 (the introduction of the real), and inflation in 1995 fell to 66% and 16% in 1996. FHC, backed by powerful conservative bosses, announced his presidential candidacy in March 1994 and, after July, rode on the successful introduction of the new currency. In October, FHC was elected by the first round with 54.3% against 27% for Lula, who had been the initial favourite since the fallout from the Collor crisis.

FHC was a member of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB), a party which he had helped create in 1988. The PSDB was founded by progressive reformist dissidents of the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) which had, under Sarney’s presidency, taken the form of an ideologically incoherent patronage-based alliance of regional political bosses. The PSDB’s founders included, besides FHC, Mário Covas, Franco Montoro and former student opposition leader José Serra. In 1989, the PSDB supported Lula in the second round over Collor and the party – especially Mário Covas – were opponents of Collor’s government before it was cool. FHC’s 1994 candidacy was made possible through the support of the PFL, particularly ACM, who provided FHC with his Vice President, Marco Maciel.

In office, Cardoso’s government maintained a strict macroeconomic policy aimed at ensuring the long-term success of the Plano Real and Brazil’s economic recovery. His government promoted privatizations of various state-owned companies (notably Telebrás, the state-owned monopoly telecom company); liberalized the energy sector with a 1997 law which broke Petrobras’ monopoly on exploration, production, refining and transportation of oil by allowing concessions of ‘well to wheel’ activities to private Brazilian companies (a model for the recent reform to Mexico’s public energy monopoly) and passed a fiscal responsibility law to impose controls on states and municipalities’ spending. The government’s HIV/AIDS policy, which encouraged production of generic drugs, was very successful and prevented an AIDS pandemic similar to that in South Africa. In 1997, Congress approved a constitutional amendment allowing for the immediate reelection of the President, governors and mayors – an amendment which allowed Cardoso to run for a second term in office in 1998, which he handily won by the first round, once again defeating Lula. There have been allegations that the government bribed congressmen to approve the reelection amendment.

In his second term, FHC faced a far more difficult economic situation. Brazil’s growing but fragile economy was hit by the successive regional and global economic crises of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and structural problems in the Plano Real – such as deflationary monetary policies and an overvalued semi-fixed exchange rate – worsened the problems. The economic crises in Mexico, Russia and Asia during this period caused sharp drops in prices of commodities exported by Brazil and outflows of capital. In 1999, the Central Bank devalued the real and the government later decided to float the currency. The economic effect of the devaluation was less negative than originally expected, and the economy grew by 4% in 2001. However, the government’s popularity was hurt by power cuts in 2001-2002, the result of a lack of investments in electrical infrastructure in the past 10 years. FHC left office having presided over a welcome period of political and economic stability in Brazil. While his legacy is somewhat controversial, with his opponents on the left considering him a neoliberal (an inaccurate label – FHC is far closer, ideologically, to the centrist Third Way promoted in the late 1990s by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton) while his supporters claim that he laid the bases for Brazil’s good economic performance in the 2000s under Lula.

Lula’s fourth presidential candidacy was his successful one. His 2002 victory, with 61.3% in the runoff against FHC’s health minister José Serra, was the result of a calculated ideological moderation in the PT and the creation of a more appealing personal image for the candidate. Lula contracted the services of Duda Mendonça, a famous advertising guru and political strategist who had managed to elect Paulo Maluf as mayor of São Paulo in 1992; Lula became ‘Lula peace and love’, a consensual and moderate candidate very different from the angry bearded union radical of 1989; Lula’s PT allied with some of the ‘for hire’ small parties – his running-mate was senator José Alencar, an evangelical Christian textile businessman  from the small centre-right Liberal Party (PL) and Lula pledged not to nationalize companies or default on Brazil’s foreign debt (two of his ‘scariest’ promises from 1989). Upon his victory, Lula promptly moved to allay the fears of investors by appointing an orthodox economist, Henrique Meirelles, as President of the Central Bank and another moderate, Antonio Palocci, as his Minister of Finance.

Lula pursued a conservative fiscal and monetary policy during his two terms in office. The Central Bank, which enjoyed wide autonomy, followed a strict inflation targeting policy which aimed – successfully – at keep inflation within a narrow band with a target of 4.5% in place since 2003. When Lula took office, inflation had been quite high – over 12.5% in 2002 and 9.3% in 2003 – but, in every subsequent year until he left office, Brazilian inflation was kept within the Central Bank’s bands (real inflation during Lula’s term fell between 7.6% and 3.1%). The Brazilian economy enjoyed strong growth rates during his term in office, at an average of 4% GDP growth per year between 2003 and 2010 – a higher average growth rate than under his predecessor’s two terms in power. Brazil weathered the 2008-9 global recession far better than most other G20 powers, with a small recession of 0.3% in 2009 but record growth of 7.5% in 2010. Lula’s terms in office also saw a significant decline in the unemployment rate, which fell from 12% when Lula took office in 2003 to 6.7% in 2010; with the Ministry of Labour reporting the creation of over 15 million jobs during his eight years in power, not considering layoffs – although job creation was erratic in the first term. Brazil’s public debt, which had increased significantly under FHC’s second term (79% in 2003), was reduced under Lula’s presidency, falling to 65% of GDP in 2010. The government and the Central Bank stuck to IMF commitments in achieving a ‘primary fiscal surplus’ and stuck to Cardoso’s anti-inflationary fiscal responsibility law. Brazil’s export economy performed well under Lula, thanks to increased exports of natural resources and agriculture (soybeans) and a great diversification of Brazil’s export partners which reduced Brazil’s traditional dependence on US and EU markets. In a change of course from his past anti-globalization rhetoric, the Lula administration worked within the WTO and became an active player in trade disputes – notably against EU and US agricultural and sugar subsidies.

Although the Central Bank’s strict deflationary policy and high interest rates were criticized, Brazilian interest rates declined gradually during Lula’s presidency. The government’s orthodox and conservative economic policies displeased many leftist members of the PT, but were praised by investors. Critics attacked the government for insufficient investments in infrastructure, healthcare and education. To the PT’s base, however, the drop in the price of food and the rise in the minimum wage were real tangible achievements.

By far, the most successful and popular aspect of Lula’s presidency was the significant reduction in poverty and income inequality in one of the world’s most unequal countries. Upon taking office, Lula introduced a strategy to combat malnutrition: Fome Zero (Zero Hunger), whose initiatives ranged from creation of ‘people’s restaurants’, expanding access to microcredit, creation of cisterns in the Nordeste’s sertão, food banks to hold supplies, direct support for family agriculture. The efficiency of Fome Zero was soon brought into question, with claims that it was badly administered and not reaching enough people. In 2004, the program was effectively replaced by what has become the government’s biggest lasting achievement – Bolsa Familía. The program replaced FHC’s Bolsa Escola, a conditional cash transfer for poor families with children attending school. Bolsa Familía is a conditional cash transfer program to poor and very poor families granted on condition that children/dependents are attending school and vaccinated. The program currently serves about 14 million families, who receive an average of R$149.46 per month. Some critics of Bolsa Familía have claimed that the program ignores the quality of education and promotes welfare dependency rather than job creation, while other critics have charged that it is a clientelist program aimed at buying poor voters’ support. However, the program has generally received praise and international interest, including from the World Bank (which has debunked a number of myths about the program’s effects on dependency), and has contributed to the significant reduction in poverty and income inequality in Brazil. In 2003, 43% of Brazilians lived on less than $4 a day. In 2011, that number had fallen to 24%. While Brazil remains one of the world’s most unequal countries, the Gini coefficient has fallen from about 0.59 when Lula took office to 0.53 in 2011. Income inequality and poverty had remained high, with little change, under Brazil’s previous democratic presidents – including under FHC’s two terms.

Lula’s government took steps to confront racial inequalities (a longtime taboo subject in a country founded in good part on the myth of ‘racial democracy’), cracked down on slave labour in remote regions of the Amazon and Nordeste (over 32,000 people were freed from slave labour under Lula’s presidency), supported a rural electrification project, supported family agriculture and PT supporters pointed out that Lula distributed more land to landless peasants than his predecessor did. Brazil’s education system continues to be ranked near the very bottom in PISA rankings, despite real efforts by Lula’s government to improve educational outcomes. His government created ProUni to grant full or partial scholarships to low-income students and created 11 federal universities. On environmental issues, the government’s record was shoddier – Lula constantly tried (and struggled) to straddle both sides of the dispute, being sensitive both to environmentalists’ demands for conservation of the Amazon rainforest, and the importance of agribusiness to the economy. Marina Silva, Lula’s environment minister, faced constant hostility from other sectors of the government as she sought to limit deforestation and environmentally-destructive development, until she resigned from cabinet in 2008.

Lula’s government saw Brazil adopt a much more active foreign policy, breaking with a certain passivity in the past administrations, and Lula put much personal energy and time during his two terms in foreign state visits and hosting foreign leaders. His foreign policy aimed to open more markets for Brazilian exports, deepen ties with other major developing states through BRICS (Russia, India, China and South Africa), promote South American integration, rebuild the Mercosul and boosting Brazil’s weight in international organizations such as the UN (Brazil was a major contributor to the UN mission in Haiti) in the hopes of gaining a permanent seat for Brazil on the UNSC. Lula’s relations with the US, under the George W. Bush administration, were not as friendly as they had been under Cardoso (who had gotten along well with Clinton) – Brazil opposed Bush’s FTAA idea, strongly opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Brasília took some stances at odds with American foreign policy (on issues such as Iran, Israel-Palestine). Lula, as one of the key left-wing leaders elected in Latin America’s ‘Pink Wave’ in the 2000s, was friendly to Hugo Chávez and other left-wing regional leaders. But Brazil’s economic and strategic interests in some of these countries – particularly Bolivia and Paraguay – were at odds with the rhetoric of left-wing leaders in those countries (like Bolivia, where Petrobras had $3.5 billion investments when Evo Morales nationalized oil and gas). Lula’s policy with regards to Iran, Cuba and China was criticized by the opposition.

To win and maintain power in Brazil, politicians require to forge broad coalitions inevitably including slimy politicians and venal parties which represent vested interests and/or demand tangible benefits in exchange for their support. Lula’s 2002 coalition included the PT and Alencar’s PL and other small left-wing parties such as the Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Brasileiro, PSB) – founded in 1985 and later joined by Miguel Arraes, a three-time left-wing governor of Pernambuco (first elected in 1962 in the then-conservative northeastern state, with Communist support, his government forced sugar mill and plantation owners to pay their employees minimum wage and he supported the creation of unions and peasants’ organizations); the Communist Party of Brazil (Partido Comunista do Brasil, PCdoB) – based on the 1962 faction which supported Maoism (later Hoxhaist after 1976, although ironically its Hoxhaist shift coincided with political moderation) and opposed ‘revisionism’ and was famous for bogging down the military regime for years in the Araguaia guerrilla (1969-1976); and the Brazilian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Brasileiro, PCB) – the PCdoB’s rival, disputing the legacy of the original Communist Party (founded in 1922) but marginalized by refusing the armed struggle during the military regime, the rise of non-communist trade unionism and later the fall of the Wall (the remaining PCB is now a hardcore left-wing party and abandoned the Lula coalition by 2006). However, Lula needed to seek the support of other parties to gain a congressional majority, meaning that he became reliant on the backing of fickle, venal parties – parts of the PMDB (which had officially backed Serra in 2002), the Progressive Party (Partido Progressista, PP – actually Paulo Maluf’s party and the descendant of the most conservative factions of the old military party, ARENA/PDS) and the Brazilian Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro, PTB – the 1979 refoundation of Getúlio Vargas’ old corporatist workers’ party, and now a slimy ‘party for hire’ which has backed every government since Figueiredo). Some critics of the government claimed that Lula’s social policies only aimed at cosmetic amelioration rather than real changes, stemming from his unwillingness to challenge vested interests (which included the PT’s base in organized labour).

Shortly after taking office, the magazine Época showed that an advisor to José Dirceu (a loyal PT veteran), the then-Minister of the Casa Civil (Chief of Staff) and Lula’s éminence grise, had attempted to extort money for the PT from the sketchy boss of an illegal gambling game (jogo de bicho), Carlinhos Cachoeira. Lula rejected Dirceu’s offer to resign.

A far bigger scandal began in May 2005, when the opposition-aligned news magazine Veja released a video showing the boss of the state postal service negotiating a bribe. As part of the coalition agreement, the boss of the state postal service was nominated by the PTB’s federal deputy Roberto Jefferson, which intended to use control of that agency to milk money out of it. Feeling the pressure, Jefferson, in June 2005, decided to drop a bomb by alleging that the PT, coordinated by Dirceu and other PT apparatchiks, was paying a ‘monthly salaries’ (mensalão) to federal deputies (mostly from the PL, PP, PTB and PMDB) in exchange for their support. According to Jefferson, the elaborate vote-buying scheme (which was, however, not a novel idea in Brazilian politics) was coordinated by José Dirceu, administered by Delúbio Soares (the PT’s treasurer) and the money was handled by Marcos Valério (a PR/advertising businessman who received the money, by diverting resources from ad contracts, private bank loans or milking cash from telecom companies).

Jefferson was later impeached and stripped of his mandate and political rights for 8 years, but the scandal became one of the biggest corruption scandals in modern Brazilian democracy and had a grave impact on Lula’s government. The government and the PT initially denied all allegations, and tried to prevent the formation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry (CPI) and later, when proof added up, accused Delúbio Soares and Marcos Valério of negotiating loans without the knowledge of the PT leadership, or spinning the scandal as a mere (‘normal’) case of an illegal parallel campaign fund. The PT also tried to paint the opposition parties as hypocritical, pointing out similar vote buying cases involving PSDB politicians (notably the illegal financing, by similar means and with the help of Marcos Valério, of the 1998 reelection campaign of the PSDB governor of Minas Gerais Eduardo Azeredo) and accepted a CPI into the mensalão after extending its mandate to cover vote-buying allegations against the Cardoso administration for the re-election amendment. José Dirceu, however, resigned as Chief of Staff in June 2005 and was stripped of his mandate as federal deputy in December 2005. In July 2005, José Genoíno – a PT deputy and the president of the PT – resigned the party presidency after an aide was arrested with R$200,000 in a bag and $100,000 in underpants; later that month, Delúbio Soares, who had also resigned his party position, was expelled from the PT after taking full responsibility for illegal parallel campaign funds used for the PT’s electoral campaigns. Duda Mendonça, the political marketing guru, told a CPI that the PT had paid him for his services through an offshore account in the Bahamas. The finance minister, Antonio Palocci, was accused of receiving monthly payments from businessmen when he was mayor of Ribeirão Preto (SP). In August, Lula asked the Brazilian people for forgiveness and said that he felt betrayed – there is no definitive proof that Lula knew anything of the bribes being paid by his party to his congressional allies.

The revelation of the mensalão unleashed a wave of public attention into other cases of congressional greed and political corruption. In September, the PP president of the Chamber, Severino Cavalcanti – a corrupt personage whose appeal was based on lobbying for backbenchers’ spoils and privileges – was forced to resign the presidency of the Chamber for taking bribes from a restaurant owner in the Congress building. Cavalcanti, when he was elected to the Chamber’s presidency in February 2005 (replacing PT deputy João Paulo Cunha, accused of participating in the mensalão), had been a dissident from the government benches and beaten a PT deputy backed by the presidency, but by September he had become an ally of the PT in the mensalão scandal in return for a few goodies. He was replaced by PCdoB deputy Aldo Rebelo.

The scandals severely damaged the PT’s reputation, breaking its old (pre-power) reputation as an honest party fighting for less corrupt politics in Brazil. However, by early 2006, the scandal was running out of steam despite attempts by the PT’s opponents to keep it alive. Some other scandals hurt the government in 2006 and in its second term. In March 2006, Palocci was forced to resign after a buildup of reports of financial misbehaviour while he was mayor, that he had received illegal gambling money and that he leaked the bank records of a concierge who told the press about Palocci’s presence at parties organized by associates. Other scandals included a long-running scheme, tolerated by the health ministry, where deputies from small parties took commissions when mayors bought overpriced ambulances; the arrest of PT operatives very close to Lula attempting to illegally purchase an incriminating dossier against José Serra in the 2006 election; an expense scandal involving misuse of corporate credit cards by ministers or the participation of the son of Lula’s Chief of Staff in an influence peddling scheme in September 2010.

The corruption scandals during Lula’s term exposed the business behind Brazilian politics and governing. Deputies, for electoral and political purposes, seek access to pork or access to the spoils. A vast spoils system operates at the top of Brazilian politics – politicians from coalition partners are able to appoint the heads of public agencies or corporations or get their own ministerial portfolios, and proceed to milk the money out of those jobs by receiving contributions from appointed bureaucrats, rigging public tenders and controlling patronage. The mensalão scandal started with such a scheme – as part of the business transaction between the government and the PTB, the PTB appointed the head of the postal service, who was in turn expected to pay monthly bribes to the PTB. José Dirceu, a ‘prime minister’/Rasputin-like éminence grise in Lula’s first administration, was the man responsible for handing out appointments to the PT’s slimy allies. However, despite the intense corruption, Brazilian institutions worked – the government took real steps to increase transparency, independent law enforcement agencies (the federal police, the independent Prosecutor General of the Republic) and the courts did their jobs freely and Brazilian campaign finance legislation is tougher and more transparent than similar legislation in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. Brazilian candidates for all offices must publicly disclose all of their assets to the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), the body which administers elections.

Lula was reelected in October 2006. The mess of the mensalão had faded in the minds of most voters, and Lula’s base rewarded him for his social policies. Lula was officially supported by the PT, the PCdoB and the new Brazilian Republican Party (Partido Republicano Brasileiro, PRB), founded by PL dissidents (including Vice President José Alencar) and considered by some as the ‘political arm’ of the evangelical neo-Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), the third-largest evangelical denomination in Brazil and one of the most powerful and controversial evangelical churches (the UCKG is one of the richest religious denominations, owns several media sources, built a humongous replica of the Temple of Solomon in São Paulo and its leader bishop Edir Macedo is a billionaire). He received unofficial backing from the PL, the PSB and most of the PMDB.

His main opponent was the PSDB governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin. Alckmin’s political mentor was Mário Covas, one of the PSDB’s founding members, and he was elected vice-governor of the state of São Paulo as Mário Covas’ running-mate in 1994 (and reelected in 1998). He assumed office as governor in March 2001, after Covas died.  Alckmin was reelected governor in 2002, winning 58.6% in the runoff against José Genoino (PT). Paulo Maluf (PP), the early favourite, was defeated in the first round. After a successful term as governor, Alckmin imposed himself as the PSDB’s presidential candidate over rival claims. Fairly uncharismatic and introverted – he was nicknamed chuchu (a bland green vegetable) – he had trouble taking off. Alckmin’s candidacy was supported by the three main opposition parties: the PSDB, the PFL (which would rename itself ‘Democrats’ or Democratas in 2007 in a bid to modernize its image, as a right-wing liberal party rather than a bunch of old conservative coronels from the Nordeste) and the Popular Socialist Party (Partido Popular Socialista, PPS). The PPS was actually founded in 1992 by reformist dissidents of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), led by Roberto Freire, mimicking the transformation of the Italian PCI into the social democratic PDS (and, like in Italy, a small hardline minority remained communists, in Brazil being led by famous architect Oscar Niemeyer). The PPS opposed FHC’s two governments – supporting Lula in 1994, and then running its own candidate – Ciro Gomes, a former governor of Ceará (1991-1994) and PSDB finance minister (1994-1995), in 1998 and 2002 (11% and 12% respectively), although Gomes (who had become Minister of National Integration in Lula’s cabinet) left the PPS to join the PSB when the PPS left the governing coalition in 2003.

Lula also faced candidacies from two PT dissidents. Heloísa Helena, an outspoken Alagoas senator from the PT’s left, had broken with the PT in 2003 due to major disagreements with the conservative direction of Lula’s economic policies and his opportunistic alliances with corrupt parties. Expelled from the PT in December 2003, she was one of the founding members of the Socialism and Freedom Party (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade, PSOL). Senator Cristovam Buarque, a former PT governor of the DF (1995-1999) and education minister (2003-2004), who left the PT in 2004, ran for the Democratic Labour Party (Partido Democrático Trabalhista, PDT). The PDT was founded in 1979, led by veteran leftist politician Leonel Brizola (the brother-in-law of deposed President João Goulart), who as PTB governor of Rio Grande do Sul (1959-1963) and federal deputy for Guanabara (1963-1964) was one of the main players in the highly-charged political debates which led up to the 1964 coup, pressuring Goulart to speed up controversial left-wing reforms including agrarian reforms and regulation of profit remittances by foreign corporations. In exile during the military regime, Brizola returned to Brazil with the amnesty in 1979 and created the PDT after losing the rights to the name PTB to Ivete Vargas, Getúlio Vargas’ grand-niece. In 1989, Brizola placed a close third in the first round of the presidential election (15.5% to Lula’s 16.1%). Brizola and brizolismo remained very powerful in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where he served as governor between 1983 and 1987 and again between 1991 and 1994. Brizola died in 2004. The PSOL and PDT both welcomed dissidents from the PT, as did the smaller Green Party (Partido Verde, PV).

In the first round, Lula won 48.6% against 41.6% for Alckmin, with Heloísa Helena winning 6.9% and Cristovam Buarque receiving only 2.6%. Lula had been widely expected to be reelected by the first round, but suffered from a late swing against him because of the backlash against the PT’s dirty tricks in the fake dossier against José Serra (the PSDB’s candidate for governor of São Paulo) and Lula’s refusal to participate in televised debates against his opponents. Alckmin, on the other hand, finished strong. However, Lula seized the initiative in the runoff campaign and claimed that Alckmin would privatize state-owned corporations and dismantle the Bolsa Familía (largely false accusations, besides the PSDB’s campaign focused on hitting the PT and Lula for corruption). Alckmin was unable to build on his first round result, and the runoff ended up as a Lula blowout: 60.8% to 39.2% for Alckmin, who lost votes from the first round.

Interestingly, the 2006 election was the realigning election in terms of voting patterns and the main coalitions/parties’ bases of support. Whereas in 2002, ‘Lula peace and love’ had fairly evenly distributed support throughout all regions and demographic groups, the 2006 election showed a much more polarized map and electorate. Lula swept the Nordeste with 77% (61.5% in 2002), Brazil’s poorest (and blackest/brownest) region, thanks to massive swings in his favour in the rural regions (particularly the arid and inhospitable sertão, home to the infamous latifúndios) – traditionally under the grip of conservative barons – where poor voters benefited from federal spending and Lula’s social programs. The success of the Lula coalition in the Nordeste has also had repercussions at the congressional and state level, where the PFL/DEM have suffered significant loses in their old regional base. On the other hand, Alckmin won the state of São Paulo and the South, the wealthiest (and whitest) regions of the country. Alckmin won 52.3% in São Paulo (state), which has always been fairly conservative despite being the PT’s cradle, and 53.5% in the South region; in 2002, Lula had won 55.4% in São Paulo and 58.8% in the South. In 2006, there was a clear polarization of voting patterns, with wealth, education and race (to a lesser extent) becoming the key variables. In past elections, such as 1989, there had been similar left-right polarization, but around different variables – in 1989, the main cleavage between Lula and Collor, for example, had been rural-urban.

The PMDB replaced the PT as the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, while the opposition PSDB and PFL/DEM ranked as the third and fourth largest parties respectively. Paulo Maluf, who was himself elected federal deputy with the highest vote count of any candidate in the country, saw his party, the PP, win 42 seats. The PSB, PDT, PTB, PL, PPS, PV and PCdoB all won over 10 seats in the Chamber. In Amapá, former president José Sarney (PMDB) was reelected to the Senate, where he had been a key backer of the Lula government. In Alagoas, former president Fernando Collor was elected to the Senate for the tiny Partido Renovador Trabalhista Brasileiro (PRTB), although he jumped ship to the PTB within days.

In gubernatorial races, José Serra (PSDB) was elected governor of São Paulo in the first round, taking 57.9% against 31.7% for PT senator Aloizio Mercadante. Mercadante’s campaign, already in poor shape, was killed off by the PT’s fake dossier scandal. In Minas Gerais, popular PSDB governor Aécio Neves, the grandson of Tancredo Neves, was reelected with a huge 77% of the votes against the PT – all while Lula defeated Alckmin in the state, indicating a very strong ‘Lula-Aécio’ vote-splitting campaign, which Aécio tolerated much to the national PSDB’s displeasure. In Rio Grande do Sul, the PT’s Olivío Dutra – one of the party’s founders and the first PT mayor of Porto Alegre (1989-1992) – was unable to regain the office he lost in 2002, losing in the second round to Yeda Crusius (PSDB). In Rio de Janeiro, PMDB senator Sérgio Cabral was easily elected in the second round against right-wing candidate Denise Frossard (PPS). At the time, Cabral was supported by former governor Anthony Garotinho (a party-hopper, who was also PMDB back then) and his wife, outgoing governor Rosinha Garotinho. Garotinho, an evangelical Christian and former ally of Leonel Brizola, is a classic (but clownish) populist who is popular with poorer voters because of his pro-poor policies (meals and hotel nights at the symbolic price of R$1) but disliked by others for his thinly-veiled religious proselytizing and corruption (vote buying, illegal campaign funding). Garotinho, then in the PSB, had run for President in 2002 and placed third with 18% thanks to strong evangelical support. He had unsuccessfully tried to receive the PMDB’s nomination for President in 2006, but a short-lived ‘electoral verticalization’ rule in place at the time which forced parties to have the same alliances at all levels led the PMDB to remain neutral to retain its state-by-state alliances. Although Garotinho had (controversially) endorsed Alckmin in the runoff, Lula supported Cabral.

In Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos (PSB), the grandson of Miguel Arraes and the Minister of Science and Technology (2004-2005), was elected governor in the second round, winning 65.4% against 34.6% for incumbent governor Mendonça Filho (PFL), who had replaced powerful right-wing governor Jarbas Vasconcelos (PMDB) in March 2006. In the first round, the PT’s favourite – health minister Humberto Costa (who had been defeated by Jarbas Vasconcelos in 2002), was defeated, placing a close third. In Maranhão, Roseana Sarney (PFL but pro-Lula) – José Sarney’s daughter – was narrowly defeated in the second round by Jackson Lago (PDT), 48.2% to 51.8%, marking one of the first defeats of the Sarney clan in its own backyard in some 40 years. However, since Lago was soon embroiled in a corruption sting by the federal police, the TSE invalidated all votes cast in his favour in 2009 and Roseana Sarney was proclaimed elected in his stead. In Bahia, the hitherto hegemonic ‘carlist’ machine of ACM (which had ruled without interruption since 1989) suffered an historic – and unexpected – defeat when Jaques Wagner (PT), who had been minister of institutional relations under Lula, defeated incumbent governor Paulo Souto (PFL) in the first round (52.9% to 43%; Souto had led in all polls). In Ceará, incumbent governor Lúcio Alcântara (PSDB) was defeated in a landslide by Cid Gomes (PSB), the brother of Ciro Gomes.

The 2010 elections came at the peak of Lula’s popularity – the outgoing term-limited President had approval ratings over 80% (the highest for any Brazilian President), the economy was performing very well after recovering from a short economic crisis and Lula’s social programs were widely hailed as great successes and best-practices in reducing poverty. Lula handpicked his successor, choosing Dilma Rousseff, who had been Minister of the Casa Civil (Chief of Staff) since Dirceu’s resignation in 2005, and Minister of Mines and Energy prior to that. Dilma, as she is widely referred to in Brazil, was born in a middle-class family in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais) to a Bulgarian father and Brazilian mother in 1947. She was politicized as a student around the time of the 1964 military coup, and joined a non-communist far-left organization and opted for armed resistance (in the Comando de Libertação Nacional and then in VAR-Palmares) although she largely took an underground leadership rather than guerrilla role. As a member of VAR-Palmares, Dilma may have participated in that group’s most famous action – a raid on the safe of Ademar de Barros, an infamously corrupt populist former governor of São Paulo. Dilma was arrested in 1970 and tortured for 22 days, and was finally released from prison in 1972. She never returned to underground resistance, instead opting for non-electoral political activism by way of think-tanks linked to the MDB in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul). In 1979, Dilma and her husband joined Leonel Brizola’s PDT – her husband was a PDT state deputy from 1982 to 1990 and a two-time unsuccessful mayoral candidate for the PDT in Porto Alegre, losing twice to the PT. Dilma herself never held elected office, serving as a technocratic cabinet member in a municipal administration in Porto Alegre (1985-1988) and then twice as secretary of mines and energy in the state government of Rio Grande do Sul (1993-1994, 1999-2002). Dilma broke with the PDT and joined the PT in 2001, after the short-lived PT-PDT alliance in the state fell apart during the 2000 municipal elections.

Her expertise on energy issues recognized – as well as her pragmatic relations with private businesses – she was appointed Minister of Mines and Energy in Lula’s cabinet. As minister, Dilma respected (and even expanded) all existing contracts with private firms, and her style received praise from the business sector. However, Dilma’s projects to expand the Brazilian electricity infrastructure to prevent another energy crisis often clashed with environment minister Marina Silva’s concern for such projects’ ecological footprints. As minister, she was also responsible for the development of the Luz para Todos (light for all) project, which aimed at providing free access to electricity for poor rural regions. In 2005, after José Dirceu’s resignation, Lula surprised many by appointing Dilma to replace him as his Chief of Staff.

Dilma’s candidacy for the PT as Lula’s preferred successor was in the works as early as 2008 but was only officially announced in June 2010. Dilma’s candidacy was supported by a broad coalition including the PMDB (which provided Dilma’s running-mate, the president of the Chamber of Deputies Michel Temer), PDT, PCdoB, PSB (which withdrew the early candidacy of Ciro Gomes, who only begrudgingly endorsed Dilma after the first round), PRB, the new Republic Party (Partido da República, PR) and three smaller parties including the Social Christian Party (Partido Social Cristão, PSC). The PR, a venal and slimy populist assemblage of various opportunistic politicians, had been founded in 2006 by the merger of the old PL with the remnants of the far-right populist/nationalist PRONA, whose popular and charismatic leader Enéas Carneiro died in 2007.

The main opposition candidate was José Serra, who had served as governor of São Paulo since 2007 and was leaving office with fairly high approval ratings. Serra was supported by the PSDB, DEM, PPS, PTB and two smaller parties.

Marina Silva, who had served as Lula’s environment minister from 2003 to 2008 and had been a member of the PT for over two decades, had quit the PT in 2009, a year after she left cabinet in disagreement with the government’s environmental policies. As noted above, while she was environment minister, she clashed several times with Dilma over environmental policies and conservation. While Lula tried hard to straddle both sides in the environmental protection/economic development debate, some of his policies – such as the São Francisco river diversion project, the push of agribusiness in the rainforest regions and road construction in the rainforest – were criticized by environmentalists, while those leading those projects criticized Marina for delays in the issuing of permits. In 2009, Marina – who had been a PT senator from the Amazonian state of Acre since 1995 – left the PT, which she had joined in 1986, and joined the Green Party (Partido Verde, PV). The Greens had been part of Lula’s coalition in 2002, but left the government in 2005 over environmental policy differences (but Gilberto Gil, the famous Green-aligned singer who was Lula’s culture minister, stayed in). The PV has tended to be one of the more ideologically consistent and principled minor parties, although the PV has been divided between those friendlier to the PT and those more aligned with the PSDB-led right-wing opposition. Fernando Gabeira, a writer famous for his participation in the 1969 kidnapping of the US ambassador served as a PV federal deputy from Rio de Janeiro from 1995 to 2011 (with a brief switch to the PT in 2002-2003) and came very close to becoming mayor of Rio in 2008, and in recent years he has favoured alliances with the right. On the other hand, Sarney Filho – José Sarney’s son and PV federal deputy – began his career in ARENA/PDS and nowadays supports alliances with the PT. Marina became the PV’s candidate, without any other allies.

Marina is an evangelical Christian since 1997, and has some controversial socially conservative views (which are very out of the mainstream for a Green politician) – she is pro-life, opposes same-sex marriage, stem cell research, drug legalization and expressed sympathy for creationist views.

The candidates differed little on issues such as monetary and fiscal policy (both Serra and Dilma supporting the existing macroeconomic framework and orthodox policies), while clashing on questions such as the role of the state in the economy and foreign policy.

Dilma’s support, which was as low at 3% in 2008, shot up instantly as Lula started actively campaigning for her as his anointed successor in May 2010. With the beginning of free electoral programming in August 2010, Dilma had an unassailable lead over Serra’s faltering campaign and was set to win by the first round until the last week as Marina rapidly gained in the polls (8-10% since the beginning of the year, she began gaining in the last stretch). In the first round, Dilma underperformed and won 46.9%, while both Serra and Marina overperformed their polling: Serra won 32.6% and Marina came out as the real winner, with 19.3%. Marina managed to build an unusual composite coalition with middle-class socially liberal urban bobo voters and conservative evangelical voters.

Serra managed to build a stronger campaign in the runoff, while Dilma faced a wave of attacks from Serra concerning her inexperience and from religious leaders who alleged that she was personally pro-choice (she clarified that she would not touch Brazil’s restrictive abortion laws). Nevertheless, Dilma was handily elected, with 56% of the vote.

Dilma’s coalition won a three-fifths majority in the Chamber and the Senate, with the PT replacing the PMDB as the largest party in the lower house. On the right, the PSDB, PPS and especially DEM all suffered substantial loses in Congress. The most voted candidate for the Chamber in the county was Tiririca (PR), a professional clown and singer-songwriter, who basically ran a protest joke campaign and managed 1.348 million votes (the second-highest all-time number of votes for a candidate, after PRONA’s Enéas Carneiro in 2002). Upon his election, he faced serious questions about his literacy and was forced to pass a literacy test. His support, plus that of Anthony Garotinho (also from the PR, and the second-most voted candidate in Brazil), allowed the PR to win 41 seat, making it the fifth largest party in the Chamber.

In Minas Gerais’ senate race, term-limited governor Aécio Neves (PSDB) and former President Itamar Franco (PPS) were elected to the Senate. In the gubernatorial contest in MG, Aécio’s successor Antônio Anastasia was elected to a full term with over 62% in the first round. In São Paulo, in an amusing game of musical-chairs, Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) was elected to succeed Serra as governor, with 50.6% in the first round. Aloysio Nunes (PSDB), a former federal deputy and justice minister under FHC, was elected to the first seat in the Senate with a surprisingly massive vote (he broke the existing record for the highest number of votes for any senatorial candidate in Brazil); the second seat went to Marta Suplicy (PT), a former mayor of São Paulo (2000-2004) but her co-candidate and presumed favourite, singer and TV star Netinho de Paula (PCdoB), was narrowly defeated after a story of domestic assault. In Rio de Janeiro, incumbent PMDB governor Sérgio Cabral was reelected with two-thirds of the vote against 20.7% for right-wing candidate Fernando Gabeira (PV). Lindberg Farias (PT), a former student leader and key player in the 1992 caras-pintadas movement for Collor’s impeachment, was elected to the Senate with the most votes while incumbent Senator Marcelo Crivella (PRB), a UCKG bishop and gospel singer, was reelected. In Rio Grande do Sul, PSDB governor Yeda Crusius’ administration became a trainwreck before it even began in 2007 (broken promises, corruption allegations, coalition infighting) so she was handily defeated (18.4% and third) while Tarso Genro (PT), was elected in the first round. In the DF, the DEM governor elected in 2006 – José Arruda – had been arrested while in office and later impeached after a vast corruption scandal (the mensalão do DEM). Former federal deputy Agnelo Queiroz (PT), hardly cleaner himself, was elected in the runoff with 66% of the votes against the wife of another corrupt former governor Joaquim Roriz (PSC).

In the Nordeste, the old right-wing barons suffered some major defeats. In Bahia, PT governor Jaques Wagner was reelected in a landslide (63.4%) despite having broken with the PMDB. In Pernambuco, governor Eduardo Campos (PSB) was one of the most popular governors in the country, so he was reelected with a phenomenal 82.8% against Jarbas Vasconcelos. In the senatorial contest, veteran PFL/DEM senator and former Vice President Marco Maciel was defeated in a landslide, with both seats going to the left (including one to the PT’s Humberto Costa). In Ceará, in what was perhaps one of the most unexpected result, popular PSDB senator Tasso Jereissati was defeated after Lula campaigned strongly against him. In Alagoas, incumbent governor Teo Vilela Filho (PSDB) was ultimately narrowly reelected in the second round of an exciting gubernatorial race which saw a fierce first round battle with senator/impeached President Collor (PTB) and Collor’s nemesis, former two-term governor Ronaldo Lessa (PDT). Collor was narrowly defeated by Lessa for second place in the first round (28.8% to 29.2%, with 39.6% for the incumbent), but despite an unholy alliance with Collor, Lessa was defeated in the second round. In the senatorial contest, incumbent senator Renan Calheiros (PMDB) had no problems with reelection, despite a major scandal in 2007 (Renangate: a business was accused of making payments to Renan’s ex-mistress, with whom he had an illegitimate daughter). He had narrowly survived an impeachment vote following that scandal. In Maranhão, despite another wave of corruption allegations hitting the Sarney clan (José Sarney was by then back as President of the Senate), governor Roseana Sarney (PMDB) was reelected in the first round.

Dilma’s presidency

Upon her election, Dilma – like Lula in 2002 – reiterated her commitment to follow Lula’s macroeconomic policy. Alexandre Tombini, another supporter of low-inflation policies, replaced Meirelles as President of the Central Bank, while Guido Mantega – a more ‘developmentalist’ petista, stayed on as finance minister (a post he has held since 2006).

Dilma’s cabinet was the product of a tricky balancing act, in which she needed to please every part of her broad coalition. Most ministerial portfolios went to the PT – including key ones such as finance, justice, education, health and industry – but the PT’s allies were rewarded with some portfolios. The PMDB, for example, received the Ministry of Social Security, the ministry with the highest operating budget. The PMDB, however, was disappointed with the meager clutch of ministries awarded to them. The PR received transportation, the PCdoB retained sports, the PDT got labour and the PRB received fisheries and aquaculture. These smaller parties, as it turned out, came to feel that they ‘owned’ these ministries and treated them as their private property. The President also has over 25,000 jobs in boards, agencies, state-owned firms and public institutions in her gift – although the government has insisted that these jobs largely go to professional civil servants, the truth is that a lot of these jobs are patronage posts used to reward allies. Antonio Palocci, dismissed as finance minister in 2006 following a scandal, returned to a highly powerful position as Dilma’s Chief of Staff (Minister of the Casa Civil)

After the booming economy in the last year(s) of Lula’s term, the economy was clearly overheating and Brazil’s structural economic problems became clearer. In 2011, the economy grew by only 2.7%, the slowest growth rate in South America and lower than any of Brazil’s other BRICS partners. Inflation was also fairly high as Dilma took office, and inflation hit 6.5% – the upper limit of inflation set by the Central Bank – in 2011. The government raised interest rates from 10.75% to 11.25% (with further increases to 12.5% by summer 2011), increased the minimum wage to R$545/month and cut the federal budget by R$50 billion – all measures adopted in order to cool the overheating economy and reduce inflation. Critics, however, pointed out that Dilma did little to slow the hectic increase in federal spending (which has been growing since Lula), especially on salaries, pensions and resources for the BNDES (the national development bank) for loans on infrastructure projects. In 2010, a large part of the huge GDP growth had come from the typical pre-election binge spending by all levels of government.

The government continued the social programs which had made Lula so popular, again aimed at improving the standard of living for low-income Brazilians. In March 2010, the government renewed the Growth Acceleration Program (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento, PAC) as PAC-2, continuing the federal government’s large public works and infrastructure stimulus program first introduced in 2007 (Dilma, as Chief of Staff, had been a key player in the launch of the first PAC in 2007). PAC-2 foresaw R$1.59 trillion investments on a range of government projects and public works, including projects such as Minha Casa, Minha Vida (aimed at providing 2 million homes by 2014, 60% of them to poor families). In 2011, the government launched Brasil sem Miséria, a social program (in reality an expansion of the Bolsa Familía) aimed at removing 16.2 million people from ‘extreme poverty’ (living on less than R$70 per month) and ensuring that all welfare recipients have a monthly household per-person income over R$70Other programs included support to microentrepreneurship, construction of cisterns for consumption and agriculture and ‘Science without Borders’ (funding 75,000 scholarships for post-secondary students to study STEM subjects abroad). Official sources claim that the government’s anti-poverty programs and initiatives have been very successful at alleviating poverty, improving poor families’ living conditions, empowering women, expanding education and improving health outcomes.

Early in her first term, Dilma continued her predecessor’s moderate economic policies, much to the chagrin of forces further left and the PT’s traditional allies in organized labour. A notable example came with airports – passenger numbers have expanded in recent years, and the organization of major international sporting events – the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics – required larger, modern and well-managed airport. Brazilian airports are managed by Infraero, a state-owned company under the Ministry of Defense which is a byword for bureaucratic obstruction and mismanagement. In April 2011, the government announced that it would grant concessions to private companies to manage some of Brazil’s largest airports. Thus far, 6 major airports (Natal, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Campinas, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão) are administered by private companies with concessions with minority participation (49%) by Infraero in 5 of them.

The government also cut payroll taxes for selected industries, widened a scheme which allows small businesses to use a simplified system for filing tax returns, worked to rationalize interstate taxes and sought to improve productivity by offering more scholarships and technical training.

Public spending on pensions and old age dependency in Brazil and other major economies (source: The Economist, Sept. 28, 2013)

One policy area which is of growing urgency for the federal government is pensions – Brazil has an absurdly generous constitutionally-entrenched pension system for private and public sector workers. Brazil spends about 11% of its GDP on pensions – slightly less than Italy and France, but far more than the UK, Canada or the US; all countries which have a much older population than Brazil. The pension system is extremely generous – for old age pensions on full pay with a high cap, private sector workers need only contribute for 15 years and work until 65 (men)/60 (women), with the possibility for a slightly less generous pension if one has contributed for 35 (men)/30 (women) years. Public sector workers have it even better – with a slightly earlier retirement age (60 and 55, only for those hired since a 1998 reform which increased the retirement ages from 53 and 48), and a minimum of 10 years of work (before 1998, there wasn’t even a vesting period). Contribution rates are very high, which may discourage formal employment.

There is a very strong re-distributive element in the pension system – there are exemptions from contributions and reduced contribution rates for low-wage earners, and a guaranteed right to a minimum monthly pension of R$678 to poor men and women (above the ages of 65 and 60) even if they have never contributed. Rural workers, regardless of income, can retire earlier and get R$622 per month without ever contributing. All pensions must exceed the minimum wage, which increases every year. Finally, bereaved spouses – unlike in almost every other country – get the full sum of the deceased’s pension (even if they were not retired) for the rest of their lives. On the whole, Brazilians – on average – can retire on 70% of final pay at 54, compared to 61 in Greece (whose pension system was held as one of the culprits for the crisis). As a result, the pension fund has a large deficit.

In contrast, while Brazil spends a lot on pensions (roughly half of the federal budget goes to pension, with another large chunk for salaries), it spends very little on infrastructure, investments and children. Therefore, old age poverty is less of an issue, but child poverty is a major problem in Brazil. Children-oriented benefits are sparse and meager – the means-tested Bolsa Família grants only average R$155 per month. Reforms to the pension system are seen as inevitable, but they remain very tough – partly because the constitution guarantees lots of rights to workers and pensioners, partly because it requires a lot of political capital. In February 2012, Congress passed a reform which caps the defined-benefits plans of future federal government employees at the private sector’s levels (R$3916 per month). In 2013, the government was forced to abandon a reform which would include a minimum retirement age. Many analysts insist that further, tougher reforms are necessary – The Economist proposed a minimum retirement age, less generous benefits (which are currently constitutionally tied to the minimum wage) and is critical of the yearly increases in the minimum wage (it is increased by the sum of the previous year’s inflation and GDP growth from the year before that), but admitted that such changes are unlikely to find much congressional support.

In her first years in office, Dilma faced an avalanche of scandals coming from her cabinet. In June 2011, Antonio Palocci, the Chief of Staff, was forced to resign after an unexplained 20-fold increase in his personal wealth as a result of consultancy work. Taking advantage of the government’s weakness, the PMDB in Congress took the opportunity to defy the government by granting an amnesty for illegal logging prior to 2008; while the ‘evangelical bench’ (a caucus of evangelical congressmen) forced the government to drop plans for anti-homophobia education in schools. In July 2011, Veja revealed a corruption scheme in the Ministry of Transportation, under Alfredo Nascimento (PR-AM), with the the PR demanding a 4% kickback from contractors interested in government contracts – the money went to fill the PR’s treasury or ‘commissions’ to congressmen from states where those contracts would be. Nascimento resigned quickly, but a rather pissed off PR stopped actively supporting the government. In August 2011, the Minister of Agriculture Wagner Rossi (PMDB-SP) was forced to resign after investigations revealed that a ‘criminal organization’ existed under his eyes in his ministry (according to the Federal Police). Rossi was accused of being chummy with lobbyists, covering up bribes and electoral crimes and using public funds to pay off the debts of private companies. In August 2011, a police raid dismantled a scheme to divert public funds in the Ministry of Tourism, and Sarney ally Pedro Novais (PMDB-MA) was forced to resign the portfolio. In August 2011, the Minister of Cities, Mário Negromonte (PP-BA) became mixed up in a corruption scheme (bribing congressmen to support him in an internal conflict in the PP) and, later, other corruption accusations forced him to resign in February 2012. In October 2011, the Minister of Sports Orlando Silva (PCdoB-SP) was accused of using the ministry to provide a funding stream, charging kickbacks to offer contracts or funneling them towards affiliated businesses and NGOs, and he was personally accused of receiving kickbacks in return for directing funds to corrupt contractors under a program intended to bring sports facilities to children in poor areas. The scheme allegedly began under Agnelo Queiroz (PT-DF), the Minister of Sports from 2003 to 2006 (as a member of the PCdoB at the time) and governor of the DF since 2010. To save Agnelo, the PT negotiated Orlando Silva’s resignation but the PCdoB retained the sports ministry with Aldo Rebelo. In November 2011, the Minister of Labour Carlos Lupi (PDT-RJ) was accused of charging kickbacks for contracts, extorting NGOs, siphoning off public funds to semi-phantom NGOs and accepting flights from a contractor. Lupi initially denied any wrongdoing or any flights, but was forced to resign when that was proven to be a lie.

Dilma’s tough stance against corrupt ministers – even if, in reality, she only forced them out when things were far too hot for her – was popular, and her approval ratings were very high throughout 2011 and most of 2012.

In 2012, a Federal Police investigation revealed close links between illegal gambling boss Carlos Cachoeira (arrested by the police operation in February 2012) and politicians from both the government and opposition in the Centre-West region. Top among them was opposition senator Demóstenes Torres (DEM-GO), accused of using his influence and power to advocate for Cachoeira’s business interests in exchange for gifts and money; Demóstenes left his party and became the second senator to be impeached by his colleagues in July 2012. A CPI into the Cachoeira case looked at links between the gambling boss and governor Marconi Perillo (PSDB-GO), governor Agnelo Queiroz (PT-DF), governor Sérgio Cabral (PMDB-RJ), deputies from several parties (PT, PP, PPS, PCdoB, PTB, PSDB) and bureaucrats.

In a welcome blow to the tradition of impunity for political corruption, there was finally judicial action on the mensalão case from Lula’s first term. The process was, as is usually the case in Brazil, very drawn-out and convoluted: in April 2006, the Prosecutor General of the Republic had indicted 40 people for crimes including racketeering, embezzlement, money laundering, bribery and tax evasion; the STF received most of the accusations and began a trial in August 2007 and the STF finally handed down sentences in September 2012. The three leading political masterminds – José Dirceu, Delúbio Soares and José Genoino were found guilty and sentenced to jail (Dirceu received 10 years and 10 months); Marcos Valério was found guilty and sentenced to over 40 years in jail and two other of his associates also received very long jail sentences. After a final round of appeals, in March 2014, the STF reduced Dirceu’s sentence to 7 years and 11 months in a ‘semi-open’ jail regime (Genoino got 4 years 8 months, and Delúbio Soares got 6 years and 8 months) and Marcos Valério’s sentence was reduced to 37 years and 5 months in a closed regime. João Paulo Cunha (PT-SP), who was President of the Chamber during the scandal (2003-2005) and had been accused of receiving money from Marcos Valério, was finally sentenced to 6 years and 4 months in jail. Senior managers from the private Banco Rural and the state-controlled Banco do Brasil were also convicted of fraud and money-laundering.

Growth slowed significantly in 2012, with only 1% GDP growth while inflation remained in the upper band with 5.84%. Controversially, in August 2011, the Central Bank – allegedly pushed by the government – decided to reduce interest rates by 0.5%, to 12%. By October 2012, the Central Bank had cuts its interest rates even further, to an all-time low of 7.25%. The opposition claimed that the Central Bank was losing its independence and succumbing to the government’s push for lower interest rates. The image of the government publicly ‘bullying’ the Central Bank to cut interest rates, undermined Brazil’s reputation for macroeconomic orthodoxy in the eyes of investors and markets lost trust in Dilma. The poor growth rates for 2012 came as a shock to the government, and were partly the product of a fall in investments despite policies to reduce business costs, lower interest rates and Central Bank interventions to engineer a 20% fall in the real’s value.

The primary surplus worsened in 2012 and 2013. In 2012, the government recorded a primary surplus (before interest payments) of 2.39% of GDP, missing the 3.1% target. Besides, the government has tended to engage in (legal) creative accounting to fudge the surplus figures in the past. In 2013, the primary surplus fell to only 1.9%. Many analysts were also worried about the government’s plans to loosen up the praised 2000 fiscal responsibility law, passed by FHC’s administration, which puts ‘breaks’ on excessive spending by all levels of government and requiring accountability from governments.  The trade balance also worsened beginning in 2011-2012. From 2001 to 2012, Brazil ran regular trades surpluses primarily due to the export of mining and agricultural products (soybeans). In 2013, the country started recording trade deficits mainly due to the high exports of consumption products and the growing weight of fuel imports.

Responding to the economic slowdown, the government introduced some short-term protectionist measures while taking modest steps towards more constructive longer-term reforms. In September 2011, it imposed higher taxes on imported cars, in a bid to force foreign carmakers to build factories in Brazil. In 2012, Dilma announced that the government would grant concessions to private companies to invest in roads and railways; inviting them to build, upgrade and operate toll roads and railways. However, in 2013, the auctions were delayed because of the government’s unwillingness to allow a competitive return alienated investors. On top of that, the government had trouble extracting support from Congress – it took typical arm-twisting and pork to get congressmen to approve a law increasing competition and private investment in crowded ports (private ports can now handle third-party cargo and hire their own staff rather than casual workers from the dockworkers’ union).

Dilma’s government also proved quite defiant to public sector workers’ demands for higher wages – teachers and professors in federal universities went on strike in 2012, demanding a substantial pay raise, and the movement was joined by the federal police and other public servants. In the end, they were granted an inflation-only offer of 15.8% over three years. These strikes were led by the CUT, the largest union confederation historically closely linked to the PT.

The custo Brasil (source: The Economist, Sept. 28, 2013)

With rising interest rates in 2013 – inflation reached 5.91% that year, again in the upper range of the Central Bank’s band – the Central Bank finally increased interest rates beginning in April 2013, gradually reaching the current level of 11.25%. The government was initially reluctant to increase interest rates, and tried to control inflation by cutting sales taxes and holding down the price of basic necessities. Some of the government’s anti-inflation policy initiatives were criticized as amateurish and bad for other sectors of the economy – keeping oil prices low weakened Petrobras and the sugarcane ethanol industry, electorally-motivated electricity subsidies and rate cuts have led to fears that Brazil may face another electricity shortage. In late 2013, the government moved to tighten credit, by announcing that it would stop capitalizing the national development bank (BNDES)

One of the major factors holding down the Brazilian economy and weakening the country’s competitiveness is the custo Brasil – the high cost of doing business in Brazil, because of factors including excessive red tape (a long delay to start a business), a slow bureaucracy, the high tax burden (Brazil’s tax burden, at about 38% of GDP, is the second-highest in Latin America after Argentina), high export/import costs, expensive labour costs, high electricity prices, poor infrastructure, high interest rates and economic cartels. Dilma’s government promised to reduce the custo Brasil and repeatedly floated several ideas, but ultimately was able to do very little: nothing came of promises for broad-based tax cuts or abolishing taxes on electricity.

Infrastructure, as noted above, is a major weakness in the Brazilian economy. Brazilian roads, airports, railways and ports are commonly described as being in disastrous shape with little government investment (indeed – the feds spend only 1.5% of GDP on infrastructure). A McKinsey Global Institute report on infrastructure worldwide measured the total value of Brazil’s ‘infrastructure stock’ at only 16%, extremely low compared to a worldwide average of 71% (or 64% in the US, 58% in Canada and 57% in the UK). Obviously, this has ramifications on the economy – Brazilian producers, like farmers, spend far more than their counterparts abroad on transportation costs.

More broadly, the lack of investments weakens the Brazilian economy and, as the electricity crisis in FHC’s last term showed, may have disastrous effects. Because the government can not, constitutionally, shrink pensions or cut the public sector, the ax falls on investments. Even when there are investments, the results are often seen as disappointing – the result of Lula’s first PAC (the big state-led public works program) were disappointing, and state-run companies like Infraero mismanage their investment budgets so little of it actually gets spent properly.

Brazil came to the fore of international attention in June 2013 – not because of the FIFA Confederations Cup, but rather because of the huge wave of popular protests throughout Brazil’s largest cities (described as the largest protest wave in Brazil since the 1992 Fora Collor movement for Collor’s impeachment). The movement began in São Paulo with the Movimento Passe Livre‘s protests against public transit fare hikes (although similar protests on the same subject had already been organized in other cities in 2012 and early 2013) – the city’s newly-elected mayor Fernando Haddad (PT) had announced a fare increase from R$3 to R$3.2 (costs had been frozen for the municipal elections in 2012 and a January fee hike delayed to help the feds massage the inflation figures), sparking protests in early June. The ‘first phase’ of the protests, largely in São Paulo but spreading fitfully to other cities, were more violent, focused quasi-exclusively on transportation/transit and had little sympathy from the press or the population. The conservative media decried the MPL as radical leftist activists with unrealistic aims, and urged the police to crack down. Commuters were originally hardly fond of disturbances caused by the young protesters. However, on June 13, a brutal and excessive crackdown by São Paulo’s military police completely changed the situation – the movement became national, it transformed from a single-issue movement to broad-based protests of dissatisfaction (similar to the Turkish protests in 2013) and the public overwhelmingly sided with the protests.

Beginning on June 17 until the end of the month, and coinciding with the FIFA Confederations Cup, there were huge protests in cities throughout Brazil – with the biggest crowds in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Porto Alegre, Goiânia, Vitória and Recife – with the biggest rallies on June 18 (430,000), June 20 (1.5 million) and June 21 (330,000).

The immediate cause of the mass protest movement was police repression and brutality in São Paulo and other cities on June 13, when the military police used stun grenades, rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas to indiscriminately disperse protesters leading to hundreds of arrests and numbers of wounded protesters and journalists. In the second phase, the aims of the protests became more diffuse – demanding less corruption, better public services, control of inflation and protesting the high spending on the FIFA Confederations Cup and 2014 World Cup. The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the most expensive tournament in the history of the World Cup, at a cost of about US$ 14 billion, compared to US$4 billion in South Africa 2010. The lavish (over)spending on the World Cup and the construction of five new stadiums in host cities was one of the major criticisms of the protesters, contrasting the binge spending on first-class stadiums (some in cities, like Manaus, which will struggle to use the stadiums after the World Cup) with the low spending on public services. Economic causes for the protests included the high taxes (with the sentiment that taxpayers get little in return), public transit costs for low-income workers and increased inflation eating into Brazilians’ purchasing power. Political causes included widespread corruption, congressional incompetence and impunity and controversial legislation. Protesters demanded the rejection of PEC 37, a constitutional amendment which would reduce prosecutors’ powers to investigate politicians; and a ‘gay cure law’ (allowing psychologists to consider homosexuality as an ‘illness’ and prescribe ‘gay cure therapy’) which had been approved by the Chamber’s Commission on Human Rights and Minorities, chaired by noted racist and homophobic neo-Pentecostal pastor Marco Feliciano (PSC-SP). Other protesters also called for the resignation of the President of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL), who had survived an impeachment vote after the 2007 Renangate scandal (allegations that a lobbyist had paid maintenance on his behalf to a mistress with whom he had had a child, and that he then faked receipts for the sale of cattle to try to prove that he could have afforded to pay her himself). The protests had a marked anti-partisan or non-partisan tone, although many protesters, of middle-class background, had left-wing views.

After politicians and the conservative press dismissed the first wave of protesters as radical vandals who needed to be roughed up, the government and Dilma tried to embrace the protest movement and Dilma claimed that she understood the demands of protesters. Lula claimed that the PT had been wrong to distance itself from young people, and was now paying the price. São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad (PT-SP) and Rio mayor Eduardo Paes (PMDB-RJ) both met with protesters in their cities and proposed freezing public transit fares. On June 21, Dilma called a meeting with the top brass of the state including ministers, Vice President Michel Temer and the President of the Chamber Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB-RN) and Dilma addressed the nation in a televised address that evening. She promised to improve public services, bring foreign doctors to expand the universal healthcare service (SUS), meet with leaders of the peaceful protests, allocate oil royalties to education and healthcare (a proposal rejected by Congress in 2012) and said that government loans for stadiums would be paid back in full and that they didn’t come from the ordinary budget (but rather in the form of subsidized credits from the BNDES to construction firms – who, as it happens, are big contributors to political parties). After meeting with the MPL, mayors and state governors, Dilma later announced five key commitments: investments in public transit, continuing measures to control inflation and ensure economic stability, acceleration of investments in healthcare and attracting doctors to work in remote and poor regions for the SUS, 100% of oil royalties for education/healthcare and political reform including a constituent assembly, declaring corruption a felony (rather than misdemeanor) and a plebiscite on constitutional reform. The next day, however, the likely unconstitutional proposal for a constituent assembly was shelved in favour of a plebiscite (Dilma had apparently decided on a constituent assembly without consultation). Dilma met with union leaders, but was unsuccessful in getting them to call off a general strike for July 11 and union leaders left the meeting angry that the government had used the meeting to boast their plans rather than listen to the unions’ demands (which included 10% of GDP for healthcare, 10% of GDP for education, 40h work week, agrarian reform, political reform, investments in public transit, democratization of the media etc).

Congress suddenly stopped being their usual grubby and self-interested selves, and passed legislation which made corruption a heinous crime, soundly rejected PEC 37 and killed off the ‘gay cure law’. The government moved forward with proposals for a plebiscite (in Brazil, a plebiscite is understood as being before the creation of a law and the people approves or rejects a question; a referendum, which the opposition wanted, is held after the passage of a law to ratify it) – with ideas including campaign finance reform, electoral reform and anti-corruption measures. However, as the protests died down in July and politicians got back to being themselves, the idea for a plebiscite was all but forgotten. The parties disagreed on what form political and electoral reform should take – the PT supports public financing of campaigns and closed-list PR, the PMDB is split on electoral reform but some may favour single-member FPTP while the PSDB supports MMP. No major party seriously supports abolishing the over-representation of states in the Chamber (as it would require a constitutional amendment).

The protest wave died down, however, at the end of June – although some smaller protests occurred in July and once again in the run-up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

The June 2013 protests, with hindsight, became a clear before-after moment for Dilma’s presidency. Since taking office, Dilma enjoyed high approval ratings – in 2012 and early 2013, over 60% of respondents evaluated her performance as ‘good/very good’, about 30% as ‘regular’ and only 5-7% as ‘bad/very bad’. She had wide approval across party lines, even on the centre-right. On June 6-7 2013, Datafolha (a major pollster) pegged her approval at 57% good, 33% regular and 9% bad. On June 27-28, the same pollster showed that her approval collapsed to 30% good, 43% regular and 25% bad. Although her ‘bad’ ratings declined in the last months of 2013 and her ‘good’ ratings moved up to 40%, she has never reached the same pre-protest approval levels.

In July 2013, Dilma launched the Mais Médicos (more doctors) program to attract doctors to work in under-served remote regions and the peripheries of major cities (the general spatial pattern in Brazilian urban areas is that the peripheries are poor, while the inner city core is the most middle-class – this is especially the case in São Paulo). Given that the government’s efforts, through various incentives, to attract Brazilian med school grads and doctors to work in remote regions were woefully unsuccessful, it effectively turned towards foreign countries – in particular, Cuba. The Brazilian government signed a contract with the Cuban government to bring Cuban medical professionals to work in Brazil, under controversial contracts negotiated by the Cuban and Brazilian governments (the doctors were paid US$1,000, which was sent to the Cuban government which returned only 40% to the doctors). The program was criticized by the opposition, the Brazilian Medical Association and the Federal Council of Medicine, but public opinion was generally narrowly in favour. Some credited the increase in Dilma’s approval ratings in late 2013 to the program.

Economic indicators did not improve in 2013 or 2014, although growth stood at 2.3% in 2013. Inflation clocked in at 5.91% in 2013 and monthly inflation numbers in 2014 have suggested that inflation will again be quite high this year. Brazil’s trade balance worsened, even registering a deficit in the first two months of 2014 and again in September 2014. In February 2014, finance minister Guido Mantega announced a budget including R$44 billion in spending cuts and 1.9% target for primary surplus (which analysts are now saying Brazil will miss).

Brazil successfully hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Although public opinion was mixed-to-negative about the event prior to the kickoff in June 2014, most became supportive once it got underway and concerns about the risk of a ‘fiasco’ or disaster were proved wrong. Of course, Brazil was shaken by its 7-1 humiliation (Mineiraço) against Germany in the semi-final in Belo Horizonte, but there were almost no riots in the aftermath and it had no political impact (there was certainly some speculation that, in football-crazy Brazil, Dilma could be hurt by the Seleção’s defeat).

2014 election: Candidates, Issue and Campaign

Dilma ran for reelection. Dilma was elected in 2010 largely thanks to her mentor and predecessor’s popularity (especially with poor Brazilians in the Nordeste) and the good shape of the Brazilian economy at the time, although it was already clear in 2010 that Dilma was a strong personality herself and would not be a ‘pawn’ of Lula. Nevertheless, immediately after her victory, many wondered if Lula would run again for a third non-consecutive term in 2014 and that Dilma would only be a placeholder for the four-year term. However, Dilma slowly emerged from Lula’s shadow and proved herself – although less bold in its gestures, her government was more technocratic, feminine, personally loyal and firmer in its principles than Lula’s administration was. Although in the first year in office, Dilma’s ministers mostly got in the news for scandals, the appointments of capable and competent ministers like Eleonora Menicucci (who had shared a jail cell with Dilma in the 1970s) as women’s minister and Marco Antonio Raupp (a respected economist) as science minister were well received. Lula himself was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in October 2011 and underwent treatment and chemo (he cut his hair and beard, a dramatic change in his appearance), and was fully recovered in the spring of 2012.

Lula has retained an active role in politics since 2010. In the 2012 municipal elections, Lula used his power as unofficial party boss in São Paulo to sideline former PT mayor Marta Suplicy in favour of education minister Fernando Haddad (who he felt could have a stronger appeal to middle-class voters) and Lula actively promoted Haddad as his candidate – as a result of his campaigning, Haddad moved from 7% in the first polls into a three-way tie for first in the last poll, and ended up a strong second in the first round with 29% against 30.8% for José Serra (PSDB) and only 21.6% for initial frontrunner Celso Russomano (PRB). In the second round, Haddad soundly defeated Serra (55.6% to 44.4%), despite São Paulo being a conservative city (his victory also owed a lot to Serra’s unpopularity, being seen as an old politician who doesn’t know when to stop and one with little loyalty to the jobs he holds). Lula handpicking Fernando Haddad was initially seen as a potentially disastrous move, but in the end it was a masterful act of genius from a remarkable political operator. Despite his keen interest in politics, Lula repeatedly denied interest in a 2014 candidacy and reiterated his full support for Dilma on several occasions.

Although Dilma never recovered from June 2013, she remained seen as the favourite for reelection in 2014 given her resilient base of support and the weakness of the opposition, which struggled to profit from the protests. Certainly the leading opposition party, the PSDB, was unable to profit much from the protests because it too was identified as part of the corrupt political system and São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin initially supported a hardline policy against the protesters. The PSDB’s administration in São Paulo was also hit by a corruption investigation – companies building and maintaining train and metro lines were suspected of having formed a cartel and defrauding the state of hundreds of millions of reais.

One of the few politicians who stood to gain from the protests was Marina Silva, the Green candidate in 2010. Marina, however, left the PV in June 2011 and launched a new political platform, Rede Sustentabilidade, in January 2013 with the clear aim of getting the party registered with the TSE and running for president in 2014. However, in October 2013, one year before the election, the TSE denied her party’s registration because it had failed to gather the required signatures (492,000).

Dilma had difficult relations with her ‘base’ in Congress throughout her administration, having to deal with prickly and conceited allies who often threw fits when they were unhappy with something. The PMDB, as it usually does, threatened to ditch the PT several times – mostly to extract more concessions from the government. The PT managed to get the corrupt PR back on board before the election.

A key player in the 2010 coalition, the PSB – led by the ambitious and wildly popular governor of Pernambuco Eduardo Campos – began asserting its independence from the PT and the government as early as 2011 and speculation about Campos’ presidential ambitions were commonplace in 2012. The PSB did well in the 2012 municipal elections, with key victories over the PT in Recife, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Cuiabá and Campinas. In Belo Horizonte, PSB mayor Márcio Lacerda was also supported by the state’s popular former governor and likely 2014 candidate senator Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG). As governor of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos was a pragmatic reformist – he reformed education, extended the school day, attracted a host of new industries to the state, opened new hospitals, teamed up with NGOs and the private sector to reform education and healthcare, challenged public sector unions, worked to tackle poverty, emphasized government transparency and implemented several successful and internationally-recognized programs to tackle gender inequality or crime. As a result of his competent administration, the state enjoyed solid growth, educational outcomes improved, infant mortality decreased, life expectancy increased and the homicide rate fell significantly. To his critics, however, Campos had the trappings of a (modern) Northeastern coronel – at any rate, Campos was a rather skilled and wily politician.

Campos’ presidential candidacy and the PSB’s break from the coalition elicited opposition from the other leading PSB coronels in the Nordeste – the Gomes brothers in Ceará (governor Cid Gomes and his brother Ciro Gomes), who supported Dilma. Ironically, Ciro Gomes had wanted to be the PSB’s presidential candidate in 2010 but his candidacy was shoved aside by PSB leaders who supported Dilma, much to his displeasure. The Gomes brothers joined the Republican Party of Social Order (Partido Republicano da Ordem Social, PROS), a nondescript party which had been founded in 2010.

On the other hand, a group of dissidents from the DEM, PSDB and PP led by the former DEM mayor of São Paulo Gilberto Kassab (2006-2012) moved towards the government and formed the Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrático, PSD) in March 2011. The PSD’s ranks also included the governor of Santa Catarina Raimundo Colombo (ex-DEM), senator and agriculturalist Kátia Abreu (PSD-TO), veteran politician and São Paulo vice-governor Guilherme Afif Domingos (ex-DEM).

Dilma‘s national coalition for reelection included the PT, the PMDB (with Vice President Michel Temer as her running-mate once more), the PSD, the PP, the PR, the PCdoB, the PDT, the PRB and the Gomes brothers in the PROS.

Dilma’s campaign focused heavily on the Lula/Dilma record since 2003 – the manifesto submitted to the TSE read like a thorough grocery list of the governments’ achievements in a number of fields, most significant among them being: nearly eradicating of extreme poverty, the major decrease in poverty (with the claim that the two lowest social classes have fallen from 55% to 25% of the population since 2003), macroeconomic stability, expansion of infrastructure, job creation (Brazil’s unemployment rate is low and has remained low), the expansion of education, the success of programs such as Bolsa Família and Brasil sem Miséria. It also proposed much of the same – vague commitments to improving productivity, reducing bureaucracy, boosting entrepreneurship, transitioning to a knowledge economy, environmental protection, expanding early childhood education, investing in the quality of education (overall, the government is committed to investing 10% of the GDP in education by 2024), expanding youth job opportunities, expanding access to medical specialists and a vague promise for political reform including a plebiscite and more ‘popular participation’. Maintaining and expanding popular social programs such as Bolsa Família were front and centre in Dilma’s campaign

On economic issues, Dilma reiterated the importance of macroeconomic stability and low inflation with lower interest rates and flexible exchange rates – in other words, the same policy, although with a different finance minister since Guido Mantega’s departure was confirmed. She defended state intervention in the economy, the use of public-private partnerships to build infrastructure and some protectionist measures. Dilma’s economic record has been the focus of most of the criticism in the last four years, and she has by and large lost the support of investors and the markets – because of what they judge to be inefficient policies against inflation, unfriendliness towards the private sector, excessive state intervention in the economy and too much meddling in the Central Bank’s business.

Aécio Neves was the candidate of the PSDB. Aécio is the grandson of Tancredo Neves, the veteran moderate opposition politician during the military regime who gained a somewhat mythical status as the result of his election to the presidency in 1985 and untimely, tragic death before he could take office. Aécio went on to serve four terms as a federal deputy from Minas Gerais, from 1987 to 2003, and was President of the Chamber of Deputies from February 2001 to December 2002. As President of the Chamber, Aécio pushed an ‘ethics package’ to increase transparency in Congress and ended congressional immunity for ordinary crimes.

In 2002, Aécio was elected governor of Minas Gerais, an office which his grandfather Tancredo had held from 1983 to 1984. The state had major fiscal and economic problems in 2002, with debts and deficits breaking the limits set by the fiscal responsibility law, although Aécio’s supporters may have a tendency to overstate the ‘catastrophic’ nature of the state’s situation (although Aécio’s predecessor as governor, Itamar Franco, had defaulted on the state debt upon taking office in 1999 and inadvertently triggered a devaluation of the real). Regardless, upon his election, Aécio introduced ‘management shock’ (choque de gestão) with the aim of reducing the state’s debt and deficit, modernize and reorganize the state apparatus and implement new management techniques – he reduced public spending, increased taxes, improved tax collection, cut the number of state ministries, capped public sector pay, left over 3000 patronage jobs unfilled, adopted new models of public-private partnerships and pushed for performance targets in the public sector. He also oversaw the construction of a Brasília-like government complex centralizing all government offices in Belo Horizonte. Taken as a whole, Aécio’s reforms in MG bear a lot of similarities to New Public Management (NPM) public sector reforms introduced in some countries since the 1980s. As a result of Aécio’s reforms, the state found R$ 1 billion in savings, the government cut its own expenditures, inefficient public servants were dismissed, bonuses were cut, the government introduced transparent public tenders for government procurement, the governor took a pay cut himself and the state paid off its debt in 2005 (after 14 years in debt). The long-term effectiveness of Aécio’s early reforms has been questioned by some analysts. His government also improved education, created a program to fight rural poverty and paved roads with financing from the Inter-American Development Bank.

Aécio was one of the most popular governors in Brazil – his campaign ads this year boasted a ‘92% approval’ when leaving office. In 2006, Aécio was reelected in a landslide, winning 77% of the vote against a PT candidate. Aécio and the local PSDB branches in MG closed their eyes (or covertly backed) to ‘Lula-Aécio’ campaigns (calling on voters to vote for Lula for president, over PSDB candidate Geraldo Alckmin, and Aécio for governor) – this strong vote-splitting badly hurt Alckmin, although Aécio cared little since he had clear presidential ambitions himself. Aécio tried out for the PSDB’s nomination in 2010, but waiting around too much and focusing on the election of his vice-governor Antônio Anastasia as his successor as governor meant that he ultimately was pushed aside by José Serra. He ran for Senate instead, and although he campaigned alongside Serra he didn’t exert himself too much for him (again, because Aécio was thinking of his presidential ambitions for 2014). As far as he was concerned, 2010 was another successful election – he was elected to the Senate with over 7.5 million votes in MG, and his replacement as governor, Antônio Anastasia, was elected to a full term as governor with a wide majority in the first round.

Aécio’s tenure in the Senate, however, has not been very memorable. In April 2011, he was pulled over by police and refused to take a breathalyzer test while his drivers’ license was seized for being expired. However, Aécio did obviously emerge as a leading opposition voice in the Senate. With Serra’s defeat in the runoff ballot, Aécio immediately became the favourite for the PSDB candidacy in 2014 – however, Serra retained presidential ambitions (despite two defeats) and tried to gather enough support in PSDB ranks to run. In November 2013, Aécio was nominated as the PSDB’s candidate after Serra failed to gather enough support. It’s interesting to note that Aécio was the first PSDB presidential candidate who wasn’t from São Paulo – all six PSDB candidates since 1989 have been from São Paulo.

Aécio’s running-mate was Senator Aloysio Nunes (PSDB-SP), a former federal deputy and justice minister under FHC. Interestingly, Aloysio Nunes was a Communist in his youth and participated in the armed struggle against the military regime (he partook in the raid of a train) before he went into exile in France. With the 1979 amnesty, he returned to Brazil and joined the PMDB before joining the PSDB in 1997. In 2010, he was elected to the Senate from São Paulo with the most votes of any candidate in the country (11.1 million votes).

Aécio’s coalition, Muda Brasil, was supported by the PSDB and the DEM, as well as a whole slew of smaller parties. These were the venal PTB; the new Solidarity (Solidariedade, SD), a party founded by ex-PDT federal deputy and trade union leader (Força Sindical) Paulo Pereira da Silva (Paulinho da Força); the National Mobilization Party (Partido da Mobilização Nacional, PMN), an originally left-wing party which has become an ideology-free venal beast; the new National Ecological Party (Partido Ecológico Nacional, PEN); the tiny National Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista Nacional, PTN); the Christian Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista Cristão, PTC), a small right-wing party which was originally Collor’s party in 1989 (as the PRN); and the tiny Labour Party of Brazil (Partido Trabalhista do Brasil, PTdoB), which shouldn’t be confused with the PTB (lol Brazilian party names!). In 2010, the PTC and PTN had supported Dilma. The PTB and PTdoB had backed Serra. It’s worth reiterating, at this point, that national-level coalitions have little implications on state-level coalitions: while the PSDB/DEM will rarely ally with the PT (or PCdoB) at any level, the PMDB may ally with the right against the PT or run independently (with smaller allies) against the PT, many small parties will support different parties in different states (eg: parties like SD which backed Aécio backed the PT in some states, the PSD which backed Dilma backed the PSDB/DEM in some states). Confused? That’s fine, everybody is!

Aécio’s platform was similar to traditional tucano (PSDB – the party’s symbol is a toucan) discourse – vaguely centre-right liberal reformism, with a fondness for ideas like ‘efficiency’, ‘simplicity’, ‘innovation’, ‘transparency’ and decentralization. It’s hardly a hard-right neoliberal platform which wants to slash the welfare states (as the PT likes to paint the PSDB as), although the PSDB does share some neoliberal ideas like privatization, NPM theories of public administration and free market economics. The PSDB, however, has also supported social benefits and state spending to alleviate poverty (and supports popular PT programs like Bolsa Família). Nevertheless, the PSDB’s support for privatization (a highly controversial idea in Brazil) and tendency to cut state spending in order to balance the books is often used against the party by its critics on the left and the PT. In recent years, the PSDB has adopted tougher rhetoric on law and order/security issues – this year, Governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB-SP) ran a strong campaign emphasizing law and order themes. Aécio’s 2014 manifesto attacked government policies, stagflation, Dilma’s economic interventionism, ‘out of control’ public spending, corruption and creative accounting.

Aécio’s key themes were decentralization – devolving more autonomy and resources to state and local governments to provide quality public services (contrasted with the alleged concentration of money and power with the federal government under the PT) while sharing a common vision, and shared delivery of services between levels of government; confidence – for citizens, investors, employers and workers (in effect, creating a stable climate of confidence in laws and regulations for business); transparency – fighting corruption and other shady government practices; simplicity – reducing bureaucracy and reforming public administration; innovation – improving global economic competitiveness by investing in R&D; efficiency – a ‘management shock’ to ensure more efficient management of public resources; popular participation – fluff. In concrete terms, the campaign’s main promises were a reform of public services (particularly education, healthcare, public safety and transit), a reform of public safety (eradicating impunity and strengthening security forces), a political reform, a tax reform (to simplify the tax system and reduce the custo Brasil) and a reform (upgrade) of infrastructure (a coordinated investment plan for infrastructure with private participation).

Aécio promised a more liberal economic policy than Dilma – reducing inflation to 4.5%, then reducing the Central Bank’s target to 3% with a 1.5% tolerance range, limiting increase in public spending to GDP growth, increasing investments from 16% to 24% of GDP, closer integration of the Brazilian economy with the global economy (by reducing export taxes, reducing costs, cutting bureaucratic hurdles, tariff reform, supporting free trade agreements and supporting Brazilian businesses internationally), a tax reform (simplifying the tax system and reducing the tax burden in the long run), removing sectoral protections for industry and more competition in the economy (fighting monopolies and cartels). Aécio called for more investments in infrastructure, but in partnership with the private sector through PPPs. To address the pension/social security deficit, Aécio proposed to reduce the size of the informal sector in the economy so there can be more contributors to social security; he also spoke in favour of combating welfare fraud and increasing the specialization of labour to reduce turnover. In the public sector, the PSDB candidate’s manifesto preached in favour of adopting NPM reforms similar to those he adopted as governor of MG. Finally, Aécio Neves promised ‘de-bureaucratization’ – reducing red tape, making it easier to open and run a business, reducing redundancies and time lost to bureaucratic hassles, greater dialogue with the public and civil society and more use of technology.

The tucano candidate promised to retain the Bolsa Família – in fact, as senator, he proposed to upgrade it to a state policy by integrating it in the law on social assistance (guaranteeing it as a permanent right for vulnerable citizens); his manifesto also spoke of the need to adopt a multidimensional view of poverty and proposed to classify low-income families registered in the state’s database (the Cadastro Único) according to six risk levels to attend better to the needs of vulnerable families. He reiterated his promise to retain other social policies, including affirmative action.

On the issue of education, Aécio’s manifesto promised full-day schooling, private school scholarships for poor students, a bonus for students to finish high school to fight high drop out rates, incentives for high school dropouts to return to school (including paying them the minimum wage, more choice for students in secondary schools and strategically-focused professional education/training in high-demand sectors with good employment prospects. In health care, he promised to increase spending to 10% of the overall budget to build 500 new clinics and improve the government’s Mais Médicos programs. His promises on environmental issues were largely generic stuff – transition to a low carbon economy, sustainable development in public policies, conservation of biodiversity, reducing deforestation, fighting illegal logging although with an added focus on the issue of water security.

Aécio’s plan for political reform promised an end to consecutive reelection of the President, governors and mayor (Dilma also supported it), five-year terms, a mixed voting system, reintroducing the ‘threshold’ laws limiting small parties’ access to congressional representation, funding and TV airtime. While Dilma proposed a plebiscite on political reform, Aécio said that reform should come from Congress, which could decide whether or not to hold a plebiscite.

Eduardo Campos announced his candidacy to the presidency for the PSB in October 2013. At the same time, after she failed to register her new political party, Marina Silva announced that she would join the PSB, having found an agreement with the party. In November 2013, Campos confirmed that he would be the PSB-led coalition’s presidential candidate, putting an end to speculation that Marina could be the party’s candidate. In April 2014, Marina Silva was confirmed as Eduardo Campos’ running-mate.

Although Eduardo Campos left office with sky-high approval ratings in Pernambuco and most saw him as a competent and ambitious politician, he failed to take off in the polls – he polled only 8% to 11% in May and June 2014, a distant third behind Dilma (in the driver’s seat with 38-40%) and Aécio (with mediocre numbers between 19% and 24%). However, Campos was only using his 2014 candidacy as a springboard for a much stronger run in 2018.

On August 13, the Cessna Citation 560 XLS+ carrying Eduardo Campos and six other people crashed due to poor weather conditions as it was attempting to land in Santos (SP). All 7 passengers on board died in the crash. The accident and Campos’ tragic death sent shockwaves through the country and shook up the election. The PSB-led coalition had ten days to choose a new candidate and, as was widely expected, it selected Marina Silva to replace Eduardo Campos. She chose five-term federal deputy and Campos loyalist Beto Albuquerque (PSB-RS) as her running-mate.

The PSB-led coalition included, besides the PSB, the Popular Socialist Party (Partido Popular Socialista, PPS); originally the ‘eurocommunist’ reformist dissident group of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) led by Roberto Freire which had been in the centre-right opposition bloc since 2003; the Social Liberal Party (Partido Social Liberal, PSL), a very small social liberal centre-right party; the Humanist Party of Solidarity (Partido Humanista da Solidariedade, PHS), a tiny Christian democratic party; the Free Homeland Party (Partido Pátria Livre, PPL), a party founded in 2011 from remnants of the old far-left armed guerrilla Revolutionary Movement 8th of October (MR8) and the Progressive Republican Party (Partido Republicano Progressista, PPR), a tiny irrelevance.

Marina Silva was born in 1958 in the remote Amazonian state of Acre, the daughter of impoverished rubber tappers. She grew up in poverty, lost her mother at 15, suffered from several health problems in her youth and began working on rubber plantations at the age of 10. She grew up in the tradition of legendary Acrean rubber tapper Chico Mendes, a union leader who was one of the founders of the CUT and PT in Acre. Chico Mendes and rubber tappers in Acre had a strong environmental conscience, aware of the threat posed to their livelihoods by deforestation. In the footsteps of her political mentor Chico Mendes, Marina joined the PT in 1986 and was an unsuccessful PT candidate for Congress alongside Mendes in 1986. She was elected as municipal councillor in Rio Branco, the state capital, in 1988 and moved up to state deputy in Acre in 1990. In 1994, Marina was elected to the Senate from Acre and was reelected to a second term in 2002. As noted above, Marina joined Lula’s cabinet in January 2003 as his Minister of the Environment, an office she held until May 2008, when she resigned to protest the government’s environmental policies. In 2009, she left the PT to join the Greens and ran as their presidential candidate in 2010. In 2011, she left the PV. Marina converted to evangelical Christianity (Assembly of God) in 1997. As a result of her evangelical Protestant beliefs, Marina has socially conservative views on hot-button cultural issues: in 2010, she opposed embryonic stem cell research, same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization and the decriminalization of abortion.

Marina surged in the aftermath of her nomination as Campos’ replacement. She breezed past Aécio and was in a statistical tie for first with Dilma by the end of August and she took a solid lead over the incumbent in a runoff scenario. As Aécio’s bland and mediocre campaign floundered in August and early-to-mid September, Marina became Dilma’s main rival and she posed a very serious threat to the President’s reelection hopes. Aécio’s campaign looked like it was effectively throwing in the towel, focusing on shoring up the PSDB in state-level races while hoping that Aécio’s votes which would flow to Marina in the runoff would give the PSDB a strong position to negotiate a deal with her.

Marina’s platform had a heavy focus on political reform – she promised a ‘high-intensity democracy’, which seems to be a cool sophisticated way of saying a less corrupt, more ‘participative’ democracy. She too promised to abolish reelection, single five-year terms, aligned local and general electoral calendars (local elections are currently held 2 years after the general federal/state elections), electoral reform (quite vague on the preferred system), more direct democracy with more referendums/plebiscites and the chance for more popular initiatives, transparent campaign finance laws and a reform of TV airtime regulations. The coalition also proposed to ‘rationalize’ the presence of the public sector, reducing costs but increasing the quality of services, reduced expenditure with the use of PPPs, bringing in NPM-style reforms to the public sector (goals, indicators, performance evaluation, accountability and efficiency), channels for interaction between the public sector and citizens and sustainable/eco-friendly practices in public administration. Like Aécio, she called on a ‘new federalism’, by transferring more tax revenues to the states and municipalities and creating new spaces for dialogue and intergovernmental cooperation.

Marina’s platform on economic issues was fairly right-leaning – criticizing the high tax burden, advocating less government intervention, creating conditions for more private investment (and reducing government subsidies granted through the BNDES), a friendlier business climate (by ending discretionary government policies), calls for greater economic competitiveness on global markets, promises for tax reform (not raising taxes, cutting taxes on investments, more progressive taxation and simplifying tax laws) and calls for greater private provision of credit. However, it also promised to reduce inequality (to a Gini index value of 0.5 in 2018, from 0.53 today) by maintaining and expanding current social programs such as Bolsa Família, criticized Dilma for the drastic decrease in the pace of agrarian reform, promised to distribute land to 85,000 families waiting for land, promised to integrate those living from subsistence agriculture on minifúndios into the agricultural economy and called for broader agricultural insurance to protect against market risks. Marina, like Aécio, called for more investments in infrastructure and a major expansion of infrastructure through PPPs, concessions and direct private investment.

The platform had a green tint, with a major focus on energy policy, where Marina called for more renewable energies in the electricity mix (notably solar power), carbon pricing in the energy sector, better management of supply and demand to avoid rationing, less consumption of fossil fuels and liberalization of the energy market. On wider environmental issues, the coalition’s platform urged immediate action against deforestation, fulfilling international commitments, expanding the area of planted forests by 40%, forcing public agencies to meet GHG emissions targets, providing incentives for low-carbon agriculture and the creation of a ‘Brazilian Market for Emissions Reduction’. Environmental issues, however, were not a key focus of her campaign and many critics found her environmental policies to be uninspiring.

On the issue of education, Marina promised to prioritize comprehensive education in primary schools (for more on this Brazilian concept, see this link in Portuguese), provide universal early childhood education for children ages 4-5, expand access to post-secondary education, accelerate plans to devote 10% of GDP to education, improve teachers’ conditions and pay (one half in relation to the growth of federal budget expenditures for education and the second half tied to teacher performance) and increase R&D spending.

On social policy issues, Marina promised to maintain and expand the Bolsa Família to another 10 million families, adopt a multidimensional view of poverty, gradually increase healthcare spending to 10% of federal revenues, build 100 new hospitals and to increase the number of hospital beds including through contracts with private providers.

Urban policy was the fifth main ‘axis’ of her campaign. She promised to expand the government’s Minha Casa Minha Vida housing program by building 4 million houses by 2018, push states and municipalities to provide infrastructure to these new neighborhoods, implement policies guaranteeing universal access to sanitation (40 million lack access to treated water, 119 million live without a sewage network), improve waste collection, implement a program (with all levels of government) to build 1,000km of LRT and dedicated bus lanes by 2018 in cities with over 200k inhabitants, create a federal program to implement free transit for students (‘free pass’) and push for non-motorized transportation. On security issues, Marina proposed the implementation of a National Plan to Reduce Homicides and a Pact for Life (modeled on the successful anti-crime programs in Pernambuco), strengthen the federal police, increase spending on public safety and stronger coordination of law enforcement efforts.

The final axis of Marina Silva’s platform was human rights, detailing her vision for the state’s relationships to human rights groups, youth, women, LGBT communities, disabled people, traditional communities, minorities, indigenous peoples, quilombolas, blacks (Afro-Brazilians), new social movements and trade unions. In concrete terms, the manifesto talked about promoting regional integration programs geared towards the youth, adoption of the ‘free pass’ (see above), adopting mechanisms to tackle discrimination against women in the labour market (formalization of women’s work and enhanced oversight of the Ministry of Labour to guarantee equal pay for equal work), expanding the range of services offered to women (such as efforts to expand women entrepreneurship), sex-ed in schools, concerted actions to protect women from violence, the recognition of quilombos and indigenous land rights and less state intervention in the arbitration of labour disputes.

On LGBT issues, Marina’s manifesto became the heart of a firestorm early in her campaign. The initial version of the platform, released on August 29, included explicit support for same-sex marriage and for PL 122 (pending legislation to criminalize homophobia and ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity); the next day, a ‘revised’ version released by the campaign removed any mention of support for same-sex marriage (instead ‘guaranteeing the rights arising from civil unions’ – which already exist) and PL 122, and taming down the language on gay adoption rights (from ‘remove the barriers to the adoption of children by homosexual couples’ to ‘giving equal treatment to all adoptive couples’). The manifesto retained calls to tackle homophobia and to back congressional approval of a gender identity bill backed by openly gay federal deputy and LGBT rights activist Jean Wyllys (PSOL-RJ). Marina’s campaign claimed that the initial draft was a mistake, because it didn’t reflect the ‘mediation between the ideas of the various persons which contributed to its formulation’ (read: it didn’t reflect Marina’s beliefs) – it thus deflected accusations of flip-flopping by claiming that Marina didn’t change her mind because she never endorsed gay marriage. LGBT groups were livid at the campaign’s stance. Marina likely backtracked on LGBT rights because of the strong opposition of evangelical pastor/televangelist Silas Malafaia, who is a strong opponent of gay marriage and PL 122, as well as the hostility of the congressional ‘evangelical bench’ – evangelicals, obviously, being a key element of Marina’s personal electoral clientele. Dilma was the only major candidate who support PL 122.

Luciana Genro was the candidate of the radical left PSOL. Luciana Genro is the 43-year old daughter of Tarso Genro (PT-RS), a former mayor of Porto Alegre and governor of Rio Grande do Sul. Originally a member of the PT like her father, she was elected to the state legislature under the petista flag in 1994 and 1998 and then to the Chamber in 2002. Already a member of the PT’s radical/left-wing for quite some time, Luciana Genro quickly became increasingly unhappy with the moderate direction of the Lula government and she was expelled from the PT along with Heloísa Helena and other after rebelling against the party line on a pension reform vote. She was a founding member of the PSOL in 2005 and was reelected to the Chamber of Deputies from Rio Grande do Sul in 2006. In the Chamber, Luciana pushed for taxes on banks and the implementation of a wealth tax, created on paper by the 1988 Constitution but never created by legislators. She was defeated in 2010, largely because of the ridiculous intricacies of the electoral system.

Luciana ran on a very left-wing platform. On economic issues, the PSOL called for lower interest rates, an audit of the debt (against primary surpluses), capital flow controls, tax reform (wealth tax, closing tax loopholes and concessions for businesses), repeal of the fiscal responsibility law (replacing it with a social investment law forcing governments to invest in public services), reindustrialization, low-interest loans and revision of privatizations. On social services, Luciana promised increased public spending on healthcare and education, no privatization in healthcare, regulation of private insurance, patent law reform, free pharmacare, expansion of public education, a massive increase in the minimum wage, introduction of maximum salaries, 40-hour workweek, urban reform (fighting real estate speculation and forced evictions, expropriation of idle land and long-term vacant properties for public housing, reducing costs of rent, guaranteeing public transit as a right, increased spending on transit, expansion of public transit (including non-motorized alternatives) and increased pensions. She also called for the creation of a public broadcaster, a right to internet access, reducing monopolies in the media and the cancellation of TV/radio licenses granted to elected officials. On environmental issues, she supported the repeal of all decrees allowing the use of pesticides, suspending the release of GMOs, a zero deforestation goal, universal access to sanitation, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, renewable energies (including solar power), state control over generation and distribution of electricity and reducing energy waste. The platform also supported agrarian reform.

The PSOL took much more socially liberal/libertarian stances than any of the three major parties. Luciana’s platform supported same-sex marriage, criminalization of homophobia, PSOL deputy Jean Wyllys’ gender identity bill, anti-homophobia education (dropped by Dilma’s government due to evangelical opposition), legalization of abortion on demand in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (currently banned except in the cases of rape, maternal life or fetuses with anencephaly) covered by the SUS, pay equity, state secularism, decriminalization of marijuana, demilitarization of the police, tackling police brutality, abolishing all remaining forms of torture, a revision of penitentiary policy and full commitment to human rights (including, as a key aspect, upholding the right to strike and freedom of assembly).

On the issue of political reform, Luciana called for a constituent assembly, public campaign financing, the possibility of recall, open-list (but pre-ordered list) proportional representation to strengthen ideological parties and the introduction of direct democracy mechanisms (referendum, plebiscite, popular initiative, participatory budget-making).

Eduardo Jorge was the candidate of the Green Party (PV). Jorge was a four-term PT federal deputy between 1987 and 2003, who joined the PV in 2003. Sustainable development, clean energy, protection of the Amazon and Atlantic littoral forest, zero deforestation, greatly developing solar energy, congestion pricing in cities and energy efficiency were some of the Greens’ key priorities. Political reform also ranked high on their agenda – calling for a unicameral legislature with fewer seats, direct democracy, MMP, voluntary voting, a new plebiscite on parliamentarianism (Brazil voted in favour of a presidential republic in 1993), a reduction in the number of ministries to 14, less government agencies/commissions and splitting government revenues equally between all three levels of government. Eduardo Jorge supported the current macroeconomic framework (primary surplus, inflation targeting, floating exchange rate and fiscal responsibility) and further called for tax simplification (and no tax increases), lower interest rates, pension reform (with a single system for both public and private employees – with pension caps and recognizing the need to explore the possibility of more contributions and a higher retirement age) and more attention to healthcare and education. Despite this fairly liberal economic policy, it also supported maintaining current social programs and reducing working time (40hrs/week). Like Luciana (PSOL), Eduardo Jorge defended a very socially liberal agenda – human rights, indigenous rights, gay marriage/adoption, Afro-Brazilian rights, demilitarization of the police, animal rights/vegetarianism, decriminalization of marijuana, a less repressive criminal policy (especially on the drug war issues) and pacifism.

Pastor Everaldo, an evangelical (Assemblies of God) pastor from Rio de Janeiro, was the candidate of the small right-wing Christian Social Party (PSC). Everaldo ran on a right-wing platform promoting family values, free market economics, less bureaucracy and a stronger national defense. He attracted the most attention (and controversy) because of his very vocal socially conservative positions – he is loathed by feminists and LGBT activists because he is strongly pro-life, anti-gay marriage and anti-drug legalization. That being said, Everaldo was sentenced in first instance (in 2012) to pay damages to his ex-wife for moral and material damage and has also been accused by his ex-wife of physical assault and death threats (which he claimed was in self-defense).

Levy Fidelix was the candidate, as in 2010, of the tiny right-wing Brazilian Labour Renewal Party (Partido Renovador Trabalhista Brasileiro, PRTB), which he founded in 1992 (as the PTRB). Something of a perennial candidate, Levy Fidelix has run for some kind of office in every election since 1996 (including local elections) and ran for President in 2010, where he won 0.06%. In all his candidacies, this one included, he is often known for his proposals for a monorail/bullet train between Campinas (SP) and Rio and monorails in major cities. In 2014, he also called for financial/tax reform, the creation of R$510 family wage to replace social programs and the construction of a dozen planned cities in the Centre-West. However, this year, Levy Fidelix grabbed attention and sparked a major controversy for his homophobic statements during a televised debate. Asked by Luciana Genro (PSOL) why ‘family value’ politicians refused to defend same-sex couple families, Levy Fidelix went off on an homophobic rant. He argued that reproduction doesn’t happen through the excretory system (a reference to anal sex), associated homosexuality and pedophilia, claimed that homosexuality was contagious, considered homosexuals to be mentally ill, claimed that homosexuals needed psychological care and said that homosexuals were better kept away from ‘us’. The three main candidates later condemned his statements (but didn’t challenge him on them during the debate); the PSOL, PV and the government’s Secretariat for Human Rights filed charges against.

José Maria Eymael ran for President for the fourth time (previously in 1998, 2006 and 2010), under the banner of his small Christian Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata Cristão, PSDC), a right-wing party claiming inspiration from European Christian democracy. Eymael’s best result was 0.25% in 1998, and won only 0.06% (his lowest vote) in 2010. Eymael’s main claim to fame remains his popular and catchy 1985 campaign jingle Ey Ey Eymael, um democrata cristão (the popularity of which allowed him to be elected to the constituent assembly in 1986). His platform is usually generic Christian democratic in orientation, although more socially conservative than European Christian democracy.

Finally, there were three small far-left candidates. There was José ‘Zé’ Maria de Almeida‘s fourth candidacy for the Trotskyst United Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado, PSTU), a party born in the 1990s from the Trot faction of the PT. Zé Maria supported nationalization of the financial sector, privatized companies and natural resources; higher taxes on the rich; expropriation and nationalization of the banks; decriminalization of drugs and expropriation of latifúndios. Mauro Iasi, a feminist university professor, ran for the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) – which is currently a very small, hard-left Marxist-Leninist party. He supported mass nationalizations (energy, mines, communications, natural resources, transport etc.), higher taxes on the rich, nationalization of public transit to make it free, legalization of abortion, ‘radical direct democracy’, ‘popular education’, agrarian reform and defaulting on the public debt. Rui Costa Pimenta ran for a fourth time as the candidate of the Workers’ Cause Party (Partido da Causa Operária, PCO), another Trot party. He supported similar far-left policies including huge minimum wage increases, nationalizations, high taxes on the rich, land expropriations, legalization of abortion plus the lovely idea of replacing the police/military by ‘popular militias’ (yeah, that would work out well!).

National Results – October 6, 2014

Marina Silva’s wave peaked at the end of August, when he was tied with Dilma in a first round poll, 34% to 34%, with Aécio way back at 15%. Her first round support tapered off somewhat in early and mid-September, allowing Dilma to retake a narrow first round lead, but as Aécio failed to bridge the gap with Marina, she remained the favourite to face Dilma in the runoff. She continued to hold a narrow lead over Dilma until September 20 or so, when she lost the lead in the runoff.

Marina faced unrelenting and harsh attacks from both of her opponents, but particularly Dilma, who attacked her on policy issues but also by using fear tactics claiming (falsely) that Marina would destroy social programs and that she would hand power to bankers and international financial organizations (the unpopular IMF) by guaranteeing the Central Bank’s autonomy. Although Marina’s economic stances were close to those of the PSDB, her stances on other issues were close to that of the PT. She could have siphoned off left-wing voters by playing on her more left-wing environmental and indigenous rights stances, but she chose to focus exclusively on anti-PT voters and therefore mostly emphasized her more right-wing economic views. This made Dilma’s somewhat dishonest attacks alleging that Marina was a conservative more effective.

Dilma also highlighted Marina’s weak partisan base of support, and compared her to former Presidents Jânio Quadros (1961) and Fernando Collor (1990-1992). Quadros was a bizarre, eccentric and wacky populist politician who enjoyed a whirlwind rise to power in the 1950s (from local councillor to President within 10 years); he was elected to the presidency on a moralistic, populist anti-corruption platform in 1960 with the right’s (opportunistic) support but quickly turned out to be quite different to what they had hoped for by embracing a non-aligned foreign policy and meeting Che Guevara. After an extremely bizarre 207 days in office, Jânio got in a drunken stupor and resigned suddenly (lo and behold, Jânio made a political comeback in 1985 by defeating FHC for mayor of São Paulo by claiming FHC was a pot-smoking atheist who would put weed in school lunches). Collor, like Jânio, lacked a substantial personal base of support (Collor’s party, the PRN, won only 40 seats in Congress in 1990) and his government relied on the support of right-wing parties in Congress (PFL, PDS, PTB, PL) who were not totally reliable (especially by the end). By comparing Marina to Jânio and Collor, Dilma warned voters that Marina would lack a strong base of support in Congress. Marina herself, after riding a wave of sympathy for Campos and popular connection to her life story, and after putting up a strong performances in TV interviews and debates, began to stumble and made amateur mistakes. Aécio also attacked her, notably over her inexperience and tried to wean right-wing voters away from her by reminding them that Marina had been in the PT for 25 years. Although Aécio and Marina had similar platforms, Aécio began to sell himself as a more experienced and tested leader who also had a stronger partisan base of support.

Marina having lost the momentum, her support in the polls collapsed in the final week of the campaign. In Ibope on September 20-22, she trailed Dilma by 9 in the first round (38-29, 19% Aécio); in Datafolha on September 25-26, she trailed Dilma by 13 (40-27, 18% Aécio); in Datafolha on September 29-30, she trailed by 15 in the first round and the gap with Aécio was cut down to only 5% (40-25-20), a poll on October 1-2 from the same pollster showed the gap with Aécio down to 3% (24-21). The last two polls from Ibope and Datafolha, released on October 3-4, showed that Aécio had taken back second place, and led Marina by 3% and 2% respectively in the first round. Dilma polled 40%, while Aécio polled 24%. In runoff polls, Marina lost her lead over Dilma beginning on September 25-26, and by the time of the first round, she was trailing Dilma by a consequential margin in an hypothetical runoff. As Brazilians headed to the polls on October 6, Marina’s impressive momentum had totally collapsed and it looked like the runoff would be an anticlimactic Dilma/Aécio runoff (with Dilma heavily favoured).

President

Turnout in the first round was 80.61%.

Dilma Rousseff (PT) 41.59%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 33.55%
Marina Silva (PSB) 21.32%
Luciana Genro (PSOL) 1.55%
Pastor Everaldo (PSC) 0.75%
Eduardo Jorge (PV) 0.61%
Levy Fidelix (PRTB) 0.43%
José Maria de Almeida (PSTU) 0.09%
José Maria Eymael (PSDC) 0.06%
Mauro Iasi (PCB) 0.05%
Rui Costa Pimenta (PCO) 0.01%

Blank votes 5.8%
Invalid votes 3.84%

Chamber of Deputies

Compared to dissolution

PT 70 seats (-17)
PMDB 66 seats (-5)
PSDB 54 seats (+9)
PSD 37 seats (-8)
PP 36 seats (-4)
PR 34 seats (+3)
PSB 34 seats (+9)
PTB 25 seats (-7)
DEM 22 seats (-6)
PRB 21 seats (+11)
PDT 19 seats (+1)
SD 15 seats (-6)
PSC 12 seats (nc)
PROS 11 seats (-9)
PCdoB 10 seats (-5)
PPS 10 seats (+4)
PV 8 seats (nc)
PHS 5 seats (+5)
PSOL 5 seats (+2)
PTN 4 seats (+4)
PMN 3 seats (nc)
PRP 3 seats (+1)
PEN 2 seats (+1)
PSDC 2 seats (+2)
PTC 2 seats (+2)
PRTB 1 seat (+1)
PSL 1 seat (+1)
PTdoB 1 seat (-2)
Source: G1 Eleições 2014

Senate

Compared to dissolution

PMDB 18 seats (-1) – 5 elected
PT 12 seats (-1) – 2 elected
PSDB 10 seats (-2) – 4 elected
PSB 6 seats (+3) – 3 elected
PDT 6 seats (+2) – 4 elected
PP 5 seats (nc) – 1 elected
DEM 5 seats (+1) – 3 elected
PSD 4 seats (+2) – 2 elected
PR 4 seats (nc) – 1 elected
PTB 3 seats (-3) – 2 elected
PCdoB 1 seat (-1) – 0 elected
PSOL 1 seat (nc) – 0 elected
PPS 1 seat (nc) – 0 elected
PRB 1 seat (nc) – 0 elected
PV 1 seat (nc) – 0 elected
PSC 1 seat (nc)- 0 elected
PROS 1 seat (nc) – 0 elected
SD 1 seat (nc) – 0 elected
Source: UOL Eleições

Despite the impression that the first round would be quite anticlimactic after the crazy ups-and-downs of the campaign – particularly Marina’s surge and subsequent collapse, and Aécio’s campaign never getting off the ground – the first round of the presidential election reserved its share of surprises. As expected, Dilma and Aécio qualified for the runoff, while Marina Silva ended a mediocre third. However, the results of the two main candidates were unexpected: Dilma, at 41.6%, was significantly weaker than expected (excluding the undecideds, polling suggested that Dilma would win about 45-47%); Aécio, with 33.6%, was extremely strong compared to his polling numbers in the last polls let alone his polling numbers a mere week or two before the election.

Aécio’s performance was quite remarkable. He overperformed his final polling numbers (from October 4) by nearly 10%, and gained about 15% compared to where he stood a week before the election (at 20% and in third). 10 to 15 days before the first round, Aécio was still considered dead in the water.

Marina Silva, with 21.3%, placed a mediocre and disappointing third – although it was about where the last polls, from October 3-4, had pegged her. Ultimately, Marina was the victim of both her own poor campaign and virulent attacks from both her opponents, but particularly Dilma. Dilma’s brazenly negative campaign against Marina succeeded in substantially increasing Marina’s ‘rejection numbers’ (in Brazilian polls, the number of people who ‘reject’ – ie would never vote for – a candidate) from about 10% to 20%, while the government’s positive ratings improved from about 34% to 39%. However, from the results of the first round, it appears that Marina’s lost voters flowed en masse to Aécio rather than Dilma – something which, naturally, makes sense given that Marina’s surge was built by anti-PT/anti-Dilma voters who were hesitating between which candidate to support. Marina, when she looked to be the strongest (and only) alternative to Dilma/the PT, right-wing/anti-Dilma voters flocked to her; however, she failed to lock them down by convincing them why she’d make a better President than Aécio, so when she started losing her momentum, they defected to Aécio.

Marina was also hurt by differences in candidates’ TV airtime in the first round: because Dilma’s coalition had the support of large parties such as the PT, PMDB, PSD, PP and PR, she had 11:24 minutes of free airtime in the first round campaign, compared to 4:35 minutes for Aécio and only 2:03 minutes for Marina. Dilma used her airtime advantage to attack Marina.

That the presidential races in the last 20 years have all opposed a candidate from the PT representing ‘the left’ and one from the PSDB representing ‘the right’ (whether they like it or not) gives a superficial appearance of stability in Brazilian political choices at the top level. In reality, as this election showed, Brazilian voters at the presidential level are just as elastic and fickle as they are at the congressional, state and local levels.

Dilma, with 41.6%, had a fairly mediocre result in the first round. Dilma, as the incumbent with a mixed record, was naturally the most polarizing candidate in this race – polls regularly showed her to have a strong, resilient base of support in the 40% range, but her ‘rejection’ numbers were nearly as strong in the 35-40% range, meaning that over 40% of voters would never vote for her while another 40% were certain to vote for her. Her underperformance in the first round hit her campaign badly, as Aécio came out of the first round with a huge boost in momentum because of his strong numbers.

Indeed, as first round numbers flowed in, it became clear that Dilma would face a much closer and tougher runoff battle than was widely expected, as a result of Aécio’s surprisingly strong showing. With such high rejection numbers and the strength of the anti-PT strategic voters bloc, she was seriously vulnerable to Aécio. In 2010, Marina Silva’s voters had broken by a significant, although not huge, margin for José Serra (the PSDB candidate); in 2014, it was expected that they would break heavily for Aécio, and unlike in 2010, it was widely assumed after the first round that Marina would officially endorse Aécio.

Luciana Genro, the PSOL candidate, did fairly well with 1.6% of the vote – up from 0.87% in 2010. The main winner among the smaller candidates, however, was Levy Fidelix – he won 0.43% and 446,878 votes, up significantly from 0.06% and 57,960 votes in 2010. This strong result, of course, followed the national and international publicity he got for his crazy homophobic rant on the debate (‘reproduction can’t happen through the anus’).

Marina endorsed Aécio Neves on October 12. Eduardo Jorge (PV), Pastor Everaldo (PSC) and Levy Fidelix (PRTB) also endorsed Aécio. State-level candidates including gubernatorial favourites Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB-DF) and José Ivo Sartori (PMDB-RS) or senator-elect Romário (PSB-RJ) also endorsed Aécio during the runoff campaign. Aécio successfully managed, for once, to unite the PSDB behind his candidacy after the first round success – former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, somewhat placed aside by the PSDB in the last few cycles, regained a more prominent position in Aécio’s campaign; José Serra, elected to the Senate from São Paulo, actively supported Aécio; Governor Geraldo Alckmin, one of the main winners of the first round with his landslide reelection in São Paulo, also actively supported Aécio (likely because Aécio promised to abolish reelection). Brazilian football star Neymar also endorsed Aécio. In a much stranger twist, Aécio received unlikely ‘endorsements’ from American actress Lindsay Lohan and English supermodel Naomi Campbell – although Lindsay Lohan’s Twitter and Facebook posts were quickly taken down (it seems that the ‘endorsements’ were part of a paid advertising deal with a Brazilian company which does that sort of thing).

On the left, Luciana (PSOL) did not endorse anybody but called to vote against Aécio. Jean Wyllys (PSOL-RJ) endorsed Dilma and recorded an ad for her.

Datafolha and Ibope’s first polls after the first round, conducted on October 7-8 and 8-9 respectively, gave Aécio a narrow and inconclusive 2-point lead over Dilma; or a 51-49 lead in the valid votes. Their second wave of polls, conducted on October 12-14 (after Marina’s endorsement), showed him retaining a 2-point lead.

Dilma fired back with unrelenting attacks against Aécio, on a number of themes. Some attacks highlighted Aécio’s reputation as a patrician playboy – with allegations that he has used cocaine in the past (obviously, with Lindsay Lohan ‘endorsing’ him, that brought out a lot of easy jokes) and that he beat his model girlfriend Leticia Weber before they got married (a likely false rumour). Dilma ran an ad in which she claimed Aécio had “difficulties respecting women” – because he called Luciana and Dilma leviana, a word (not used often, it seems) which means imprudent or acting irresponsibly or hypocritically, and claimed that he had been disrespectful towards Dilma in a second round debate.

Other attacks concerned corruption and nepotism allegations from his time as governor of Minas Gerais – Dilma’s campaign accused him of building two airports in small towns where his relatives owned land and of employing dozens of his cousins and other relatives in state agencies and government jobs. Aécio failed to respond adequately to the airport and nepotism issues, arrogantly responding that the airports issue was a non-issue. There was also the case of the helicopter from Aécio’s company, Agropecuaria Limeira, filled with 450kg of cocaine which was seized by the Federal Police late last year (cue more jokes about LiLo). The helicopter belonged to state deputy Gustavo Perrella (SD-MG), the son of Senator Zezé Perrella (PDT-MG); both allies of Aécio Neves. Finally, other attacks concerned Aécio’s policy and political record as governor – accusations that Aécio’s government in MG cut healthcare and teacher’s pay (a rather egregious twisting of the truth), claims that Aécio voted against a minimum wage raise (he did, but only because he wanted a higher one than what was proposed) and the PT’s typical scare tactics that Aécio/the PSDB would abolish social programs. She also warned that Aécio’s ‘management shock’ would lead to job loses and cuts. Overall, Dilma’s rhetorically left-wing campaign was successful in driving home the idea that Aécio was the candidate of the elitist, pro-rich, pro-bankers conservative right. At times, Aécio did nothing to challenge this image – by attacking Dilma and even Lula’s record, he seemed to deny the very real progress made by the country and particularly by the poorest Brazilians in the past 12 years. His talk of ‘liberating’ the country from PT rule was very effective in playing to the base, which loathes the PT, but drove pro-PT and some swing voters away. Aécio’s close association with Armínio Fraga, the conservative President of the Central Bank under FHC who was set to become Aécio’s finance minister, also reinforced the image of Aécio as the candidate of an elitist conservative right.

Dilma’s negative campaign further alienated her existing critics, who accused her of dirty campaigning (a la Collor 1989) and of turning increasingly to the left and polarizing the country further in the process.

Datafolha polls on October 20 and 21 showed that Dilma had successfully reversed the situation, taking a 3 and 4-point lead respectively over Aécio (or a 52-48 lead in valid votes). Ibope, in the field from October 2o to 22, showed a 54-46 advantage for the President in valid votes (49-41); Datafolha on October 22-23 showed a 53-47 lead for Dilma.

On the other hand, the second round was also dominated with coverage of a developing political scandal at Petrobras, the oil giant. The anti-government Veja newsmagazine has relayed news and juicy details of the scandal, beginning with a March 2014 Federal Police operation (operação Lava Jato) which revealed a complex money laundering and tax evasion scheme. Shell companies belonging to Alberto Youssef  received millions in unexplained deposits from some of the biggest companies in the country (who have big contracts with the federal government), money which was later transferred to parties and politicians – the same politicians who had appointed the bureaucrats who hired the contractors paying the bribes. Youssef’s clients included three of the most important parties – the PT, the PMDB and the PP. Paulo Roberto Costa, Petrobras’ former director of procurement (2004-2002), was also at the heart of this scheme and was arrested in March 2014. In September 2014, he revealed to the Federal Police the names of politicians who had received bribes from the contracts: his names included the President of the Chamber of Deputies Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB-RN), President of the Senate Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL), Minister of Mines and Energy Edison Lobão (PMDB-MA), PP president Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI) and federal deputy Cândido Vaccarezza (PT-SP). He also claimed that the PT received 3% of the value of the contracts from the services, gas and energy and services directorates in Petrobras, as well as 2% from procurement contracts. The PP also received 1% of the value of contracts from the procurement directorate. In the last days before the second round, Veja hit the newsstands with an attention-grabbing headline claiming that Dilma and Lula knew everything (according to Youssef spilling the beans to the cops) and that Dilma used some of the illegal cash to finance her 2010 campaign. Dilma’s TV ads claimed that it was merely part of Veja‘s time-honoured tactics of dropping a ‘huge’ scandal on the PT when they were ahead in the final days (the magazine, in the past, had accused the PT of having received money from the FARC, among other things).

The last few juicy details from Youssef in the Petrobras scandal did tighten up the numbers in the last polls somewhat: Ibope showed Dilma leading 53-47 in the valid votes in their last poll (October 24-25), while Datafolha had her ahead 52-48 in a poll conducted on those same dates. Dilma was the favourite heading into the runoff, but the election promised to be tighter than any presidential runoff in the past.

The first round was also on a regional basis, as is the norm in Brazilian presidential elections since 2010. Dilma triumphed in the Nordeste, winning 59.4% in the region against 21.3% for Marina and only 17% for Aécio. The one exception to this triumph was Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos’ home state, where Marina narrowly defeated Dilma – 48.1% to 44.2%, leaving Aécio with only 5.9%. In the 2010 first round, Dilma had won 61.7% of the vote in Pernambuco. In the Northeastern states of Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Alagoas and Sergipe, Dilma actually improved on her first round numbers from 2010. In the states of Bahia (61.4% for Dilma) and Maranhão (69.6%), Dilma’s 2014 results on October 6 were only 1% or so below what she had won in 2010.

On the other hand, Aécio did very well in the traditionally right-leaning states of the South and Southeast – in those regions he won 48% and 36.5%, against 35.5% and 34.5% for Dilma respectively. Aécio recorded very strong results in São Paulo, where he won 44.2% in the first round against 25.8% for Dilma, who suffered an 11.5% loss from 2010 in SP. In Paraná and Santa Catarina, Dilma also suffered substantial loses from 2010 while Aécio improved significantly on José Serra’s 2010 first round numbers: +5.9% in Paraná and +7.1% in Santa Catarina, which was his best state in the first round (with 52.9%). Dilma narrowly won the key swing state/bellwether of Minas Gerais in the first round, 43.5% to 39.8% for Aécio, although Aécio’s home state advantage allowed him to improve on Serra’s 2010 performance by no less than 9% in MG. In Rio de Janeiro, a left-leaning state, Dilma won 35.6% against 31.1% for Marina and 26.9% for Aécio; compared to 2010, Dilma’s vote fell by 8.1% in RJ and the PSDB’s support increased by 4.4%.

In the Centre-West, Aécio won 40.9% against 33% for Dilma. She suffered major loses in Goiás (-10.1%) and the DF (-8.7%), and more limited loses in the right-leaning states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. In 2010, Marina had won the DF by over ten points (42% to 31.7%) against Dilma; this year, Aécio narrowly defeated Marina in the DF, 36.1% to 35.8%, with only 23% for Dilma. In the North, Dilma won 44.6% against 31.1% for Aécio. She actually improved on her 2010 results in Amapá, Pará, Roraima, Rondônia and Acre; but in Amazonas, where she won 65% in the first round in 2010, her support fell to 54.9%. Marina won her home state of Acre (which she had lost in 2010), with 42% against 29.1% for Aécio and 28% for Dilma; she mostly won through right-wing votes, given that the PSDB vote fell by 22.9% in Acre from 2010.

Marina’s vote, with the exception of Pernambuco and Acre, was somewhat evenly distributed across the regions and the states – she won 24.7% in the Southeast (with over 25% in SP, RJ and Espírito Santo), 23.2% in the Centre-West, 21.4% in the North, 21.3% in the Nordeste but only 12.8% in the South. Marina placed distant seconds ahead of Aécio in the Northeastern states of Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí and Alagoas – although in these cases, her results came at the expense of Aécio, given that Dilma improved on her 2010 showings in much of the region. Marina also performed well in the cities – 31.1% (and first place) in Rio, 23.9% in São Paulo, 25.5% in Salvador, 22.9% in Fortaleza, 63.3% in Recife and 29.2% in Manaus. In 2010, Marina’s urban support had been predominantly middle-class and well-educated, but in 2014, Marina did quite well in poorer areas. In Rio, for example, Marina was strongest in the poorer districts in the north of the city, while Aécio’s support was concentrated in the upscale seaside southern neighborhoods (upper-class areas such as Gávea, Leblon, Ipanema, Barra da Tijuca and Copacabana). Outside of Rio, Marina also did better in poorer working-class suburban municipalities such as Duque de Caxias (31.1%), Nova Iguaçu (32.9%), São João de Meriti (34.8%) and Nilópolis (35.7%) than in middle-class Niterói (29.1%). In suburban São Paulo, Marina also did better in the industrial ABC belt municipalities (traditional PT strongholds, very much eroded this year) – 27.5% in Diadema, 25.2% in São Bernardo do Campo, 34.2% in Guarulhos than she did in São Paulo itself (23.9%). In Brasília, Marina did better in poorer areas than in the more wealthy neighborhoods, where Aécio was strongest. Many of these voters were likely evangelical Christians, given that the poorer peripheries of Rio and São Paulo concentrate large numbers of evangelicals. Other regions where Marina did well – Espírito Santo, the Vale do Paraíba and the RJ littoral region – also have large evangelical populations.

Therefore, the real challenge for Aécio in the runoff was to conquer the vast majority of Marina’s first round vote – including parts of it which could be thought of as more favourable to the PT, because of their demographics.

The very pronounced regional polarization in this election – similar to 2006 and 2010, but even more polarized on regional lines – is due to a number of factors. Firstly, as Brazil’s democracy has matured, vote choice in presidential elections has become increasingly tied to demographic indicators such as income, education, human development, race (which is correlated with income and education) and religion (although this is more complicated). The Nordeste is the country’s poorest region – according to the Atlas do Desenvolvimento Humano do Brasil 2013, all states in the region had a Human Development Index (HDI) value below the national average (0.727), and the two poorest states in Brazil – Maranhão (0.639) and Alagoas (0.631) – are located in the region. The Nordeste’s poverty is the legacy of a history of social and racial inequality, a poorly diversified agriculture, weak industries, large latifúndios and a very unequal concentration of wealth; as well as regular droughts in the semi-arid inland regions (notably the sertão). Despite modernization and very real (and not unsuccessful) attempts at economic diversification, the Nordeste has remained the poorest region with the biggest wealth inequalities, low HDI values and the highest illiteracy rate (17% compared to 5% in the South/Southeast).

The South – Brazil’s whitest region (settled by European – Portuguese, German or Italian – settlers) – and the Southeast – home to the economic and political powerhouses of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais – are the two wealthiest regions in Brazil. The Centre-West, historically a poor and undeveloped inland region, has seen rapid development and rising prosperity in the recent decades, fueled notably by the agribusiness boom in Mato Grosso/Mato Grosso do Sul. The North, poor, sparsely populated and in parts still very remote, is similar to the Nordeste in that it is poor and largely non-white (brown); although the expansion of ‘pioneer front’ capitalist agriculture in Pará, Acre and Rondônia has changed matters somewhat.

In the past, until fairly recently, the Nordeste was politically dominated by an oligarchic paternalist elite, often of a very conservative orientation hostile to any kind of social reform which could endanger their hegemonic power. The old PFL (now the DEM) was, until 2002-2006, the dominant political force in the Nordeste, as a result of the party’s large network of conservative oligarchs who had previously backed the military regime but embraced democracy when the time came. The 2006 election saw a significant realignment of voting patterns in Brazil, with the PT/Lula gaining full dominance of the Nordeste while losing support in the wealthier South and Southeast. At the state level, powerful conservative oligarchs were defeated in Bahia and Pernambuco. The PT/left has retained dominance of presidential politics in the Nordeste following the 2010 and 2014 elections. As Brazilian democracy matured and the traditional power structures lost their influence, voting patterns have finally broken from the old traditions of coronelismo in the Nordeste and other regions.

First round results in municipalities with over 30% of the population receiving the Bolsa Família (source: Veja)

Another highly relevant contribution to voting patterns in recent presidential elections (since 2006) has been federal social programs. As the poorest region, the Nordeste has benefited the most from the federal government’s various social programs launched (mostly) under Lula or Dilma’s presidencies. The most famous and widespread of these programs is the Bolsa Família, which benefits 14 million families in Brazil – many of them in the Nordeste. Critics of these kind of cash transfer programs to poor populations consider these programs to be primarily clientelistic handouts, a very facile claim which demonstrates a piss-poor understanding of clientelistic politics and ignores the nature of the Bolsa Família. Regardless of what it is, the Bolsa Família has been a huge factor in the recent strength of the PT/left in the Nordeste. Veja‘s interactive map of the result (both rounds) allows you to filter the results according to certain variables, including the percentage of Bolsa Família beneficiaries (or, related to that, the municipality’s HDI or GDP per capita); the Folha de São Paulo also did similar work for the first round and runoff. The results are very revealing, as you can see from the map on the right. In municipalities where over 30% of residents receive the Bolsa Família, Dilma placed first in almost every single one of them – in the rural and inland Nordeste, she won over 70% in many of these municipalities. This graph, stolen from the Folha de São Paulo, shows the correlation between the Dilma vote in the first round and the percentage of the population receiving the Bolsa Família. There is a very clear correlation.

On the Veja map, you can also see the rather clear correlation between low HDI and a high Dilma vote, or a high HDI and a high Aécio vote.

In the race for Congress, the parties in Dilma’s coalitions retained – collectively – their large majorities in both houses of Congress. The PT-PMDB-PSD-PP-PR-PDT-PRB-PROS-PCdoB coalition (all parties which formally backed Dilma) won 304 seats out of 513 in the Chamber of Deputies. In addition to those parties, small venal parties such as the PTB can possibly be added to the government’s base in Congress given that they (a) include a lot of congressmen who are pro-government (like PTB senator Collor) and (b) they mostly end up backing whoever governs anyway. In the Senate, the government can count on about 52 seats (give or take a few) out of 81. The bulk of the congressional opposition in the next four years will be made up of the PSDB, PSB, DEM, PPS and PSOL.

The PT and PMDB suffered loses, however, in both houses of Congress; although the PT managed to remain the largest party in the Chamber, with a thin 4-seat edge over its big ally, the PMDB. The PSDB and PSB were the main winners in the Chamber, although the PRB also brought in a whole slew of deputies (like due to the success of PRB candidate Celso Russomano, who topped the poll in SP). The DEM, once again, were the main losers in the Chamber, even if you compare numbers to dissolution (as I did) to account for the creation of the PSD. Talking of the PSD, Kassab’s party was not considered as a big winner, given that the PSD came out with a smaller bench in the Chamber than it held prior to dissolution. The PSB, buoyed by its new-found independence from the PT and Marina’s candidacy, was another major winner, with 34 seats – up 9 from dissolution.

In the Senate, the PMDB’s plurality helps incumbent President Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL) hold his chair for another two-year term. In the Chamber of Deputies, however, with the PT still the largest party, President Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB-RN) may struggle to retain the presidency of the house, especially considering how embattled he finds himself with the Petrobras accusations and his defeat in the gubernatorial race in Rio Grande do Norte.

This post will continue with a more in-depth look at state-level results. It is relevant to look at the most popular candidates for the Chamber in the country. As the largest state, São Paulo often elects the federal deputy who wins the most votes of all candidates for the Chamber in Brazil. This year, São Paulo – and Brazil’s – most popular candidate was Celso Russomano (PRB), who received 1.524 million votes (or 7.3% of the votes cast in the state), becoming the second-most popular candidate in Brazilian history after Eneás (2002). Russomano served as federal deputy between 1994 and 2012 before he ran, unsuccessfully, for mayor of São Paulo in 2012 but lost in the first round (after having been the early favourite). With his victory this year, he is likely a favourite for São Paulo’s 2016 mayoral election. In second place was Tiririca (PR), the professional clown and singer-songwriter elected federal deputy in 2010 with the most votes in the country; this year he won 1.016 million votes, less than 1.348 million votes he won in 2010 but still a hefty showing. In third place in the state was noted racist and homophobic neo-Pentecostal pastor/incumbent federal deputy Marco Feliciano (PSC), reelected with over 398,000 votes. Bruno Covas (PSDB), the grandson of former governor Mário Covas (PSDB), was elected to the Chamber of Deputies with the fourth-most votes in the state. In São Paulo, the landslide reelection of governor Geraldo Alckmin by the first round carried no less than 14 PSDB congressional candidates to the Chamber, compared to 13 in 2010. Paulinho da Força, the trade union leader and SD, was elected in tenth place with some 227,000 votes. The PT was one of the main losers in the state – the party elected 10 deputies, down from 15 in 2010. Its most popular candidate, Andrés Sanchez, the former president of the popular Corinthians football club, only placed 20th.  Cândido Vaccarezza, one of the leaders of the PT in the Chamber, was defeated, placing 98th (0.2%). Among those defeated in the state were Netinho de Paula (PCdoB), a former black singer and TV star who had unsuccessfully run for Senate in 2010. Elected to the city council of São Paulo in 2012, he has since faced a corruption allegation which saw his assets frozen by court order. In 2010, his senatorial campaign had been hurt by the revelation of an old case of domestic assault. He placed 65th with 0.4%. One prominent incumbent who went down to defeat was Roberto Freire (PPS), the longtime president of the PPS, who came in 84th place. In the fun world of Brazilian politics, a candidate registered as ‘Cosme Barack Obama’ (PMDB) came 601st.

In Rio de Janeiro, the most popular candidate – the third most popular candidate in Brazil – was seven-term incumbent Jair Bolsonaro (PP), a military reservist. Jair Bolsonaro is one of Brazil’s most controversial politicians – he is known for defending the use of torture, his open praise for the military dictatorship, crass sexist/rape apologist commentary (saying that he wouldn’t rape a deputy because she didn’t ‘deserve’ it), homophobic views (calling on fathers to spank their children to ‘cure’ them of homosexuality or ‘prevent’ them from being gay) and racism (against indigenous people, which he basically considers savages, and blacks, referring to interracial relationships as ‘promiscuity’). He was reelected with a much stronger vote than in 2010 – 464,572 votes (6.1%) compared to 120,646 (1.5%) in 2010. I fear that his various racist and homophobic outbursts in 2011 may have further boosted his profile and his popularity in certain social conservative and far-right circles. His son, Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSC-SP), just as repulsive as his father, was elected to the Chamber from SP, coming in 64th place. In second place in RJ was state deputy Clarissa Garotinho (PR), the daughter of former governor and federal deputy Anthony Garotinho – the clownish evangelical populist with strong appeals in low-income evangelical areas, was elected federal deputy with about 335,000 votes (4.4%). In 2010, her father had won 694.8 thousand votes when he was elected federal deputy from RJ. Incumbent federal deputy Eduardo Cunha (PMDB), one of the main leaders of the evangelical caucus, was reelected with 232.7k votes in third position. Chico Alencar and Jean Wyllys (an openly gay LGBT rights activist), two prominent PSOL deputies, were reelected finishing in 4th and 7th places respectively. Marco Antônio Cabral (PMDB), the son of former governor Sérgio Cabral (2007-2014), was elected to the Chamber in 9th place. A candidate named ‘Barack Obama Claudio Henrique’ (PT) came 289th.

In Alagoas, former governor (and Collor’s former arch-nemesis) Ronaldo Lessa (PDT) was elected federal deputy, finishing in fifth place with 6.4%. Pedro Vilela (PSDB), the nephew of outgoing governor Teo Vilela Filho (PSDB), was elected coming in third place with 8.6%. Arthur Lira (PP), one of the leaders of the rural caucus (a conservative coalition of landowners and allies, who take stances opposed to environmental conservation and in favour of laxer deforestation and slave labour regulations) in the Chamber, was reelected coming in fourth with 7.1%. In Bahia, Mário Negromonte Jr. (PP), the son of disgraced former cabinet minister Mário Negromonte, was elected in second place with 2.6%. Lúcio Vieira Lima (PMDB), another leader of the rural caucus, was the most popular candidate in the state. In Pernambuco, the candidates of the late Eduardo Campos’ PSB-led coalition were the big winners, with 8 federal deputies for the PSB – up from 5 in 2010. Former governor Jarbas Vasconcelos (PMDB), a one-time opponent turned ally of the PSB (since 2012), was elected to the Chamber with 5.1%, in third place. In Santa Catarina, incumbent federal deputy and ruralista leader Esperidião Amin (PP) was reelected in first place. In Amazonas, former governor and cabinet minister Alfredo Nascimento (PR), was elected with 7.2%, placing third in the state. In the DF, former deputy Alberto Fraga (DEM) and former governor Rogério Rosso (PSD) were the top two candidates.

In the race for the Senate in São Paulo, José Serra (PSDB) was elected to the Senate in a landslide, winning an impressive 58.5% against 32.5% for incumbent senator Eduardo Suplicy (PT), a 73-year old veteran of Brazilian and paulista politics who had served three terms in the Senate (first elected in 1990). Former mayor Gilberto Kassab (PSD), an ally of the government but a friend of José Serra, won 5.9% though he didn’t put much effort in his campaign. In Minas Gerais, Aécio ally and former governor Antonio Anastasia (PSDB) was elected to the Senate in a landslide, winning 56.7% against 40.2% for Josué Alencar (PMDB), the candidate of the PMDB-PT. In Rio de Janeiro, Romário (PSB), the famous star striker from the Brazilian Seleção’s victorious 1994 US World Cup campaign who was elected to the Chamber in 2010, was elected to the Senate with a massive 63.4% of the vote. The former three-term mayor of Rio (1993-1997, 2001-2009), Cesar Maia (DEM), an old figure of fluminense and carioca politics, was soundly defeated winning only 20.5%. In Rio Grande do Sul, Lasier Martins (PDT), a TV reporter, was elected with 37.4% against 35.3% for Olívio Dutra (PT), a former governor (1999-2002). Incumbent senator Pedro Simon (PMDB), a respected 84-year old veteran of Brazilian politics (active since the 1950s) and a four-term senator (including three consecutive terms, serving since 1991), was dragged out of retirement at the last minute in August to replace initial candidate Beto Albuquerque (PSB) – who ran for Vice President – won only 16.1%.

In Bahia, outgoing vice-governor Otto Alencar (PSD), the candidate backed by the PT and its allies, was elected with 55.9% against 34.5% for Geddel Vieira Lima (PMDB), the candidate backed by the centre-right. In Ceará, former governor and senator Tasso Jereissati (PSDB), defeated for reelection in 2010, returned to the Senate, with an easy victory (57.9%). In Maranhão, Roberto Rocha (PSB) – the son of a former governor and an opponent of the Sarney clan – was elected, with 51.4%, defeating Gastão Vieira (PMDB), the former tourism minister backed by the Sarney clan and Dilma, who won 44.7%. In Alagoas, incumbent senator Fernando Collor (PTB) was reelected easily, taking 55.7% against 31.9% for former senator Heloísa Helena (PSOL), who had some underhanded support from the PSDB.

In the first round of gubernatorial elections, the most notable result was the PSDB’s landslide victory by the first round in São Paulo, where popular incumbent governor Geraldo Alckmin was reelected to a second consecutive term in office with 57.3% against 21.5% for Paulo Skaf (PMDB) and a disastrous 18.2% for the PT’s Alexandre Padilha, the former health minister. Alckmin’s landslide was one of the biggest victories for the PSDB on October 6 and it immediately made him a frontrunner – along with Aécio – for the presidential nomination in 2018. In Rio de Janeiro, incumbent PMDB governor Luiz Fernando Pezão – who took office in April 2014 to replace Sérgio Cabral, the increasingly unpopular two-term incumbent – placed first on October 6, with 40.6% against 20.3% for evangelical bishop and senator Marcelo Crivella (PRB), who narrowly (and surprisingly) qualified for the runoff ahead of former governor Anthony Garotinho (PR), who won 19.7%. Lindberg Farias (PT), a senator, won only 10%, a disastrous result for the PT in RJ. In Minas Gerais, one of the few bright spots for the PT, Fernando Pimentel (PT) – a former mayor of Belo Horizonte (2002-2009) and industry minister (2011-2014) – was elected in the first round, with 53% against 41.9% for Aécio’s candidate Pimenta da Veiga (PSDB). The PSDB had controlled the state governorship since 2003. In Rio Grande do Sul, which is a notoriously anti-incumbent state, incumbent governor Tarso Genro (PT) was in trouble after the first round, where he won 32.6%, quite some distance behind centre-right candidate José Ivo Sartori (PMDB), who could count on the backing of third-place finisher, centre-right senator Ana Amélia Lemos (PP), who won 21.8%. In Paraná, in another major victory for the PSDB, incumbent governor Beto Richa (PSDB) was easily reelected with 55.7% against 27.7% for senator and former governor Roberto Requião (PMDB). Gleisi Hoffman (PT), a close Dilma ally as her Chief of Staff from 2011 to 2014, placed third with a disastrous 14.9% after having been touted as a formidable candidate.

In Alagoas, Renan Filho (PMDB), the son of the President of the Senate Renan Calheiros (PMDB), was elected governor with 52.2%. In Bahia, federal deputy Rui Costa (PT) was elected to succeed term-limited governor Jaques Wagner (PT) with 54.3% in the first round against 37.4% for former governor Paulo Souto (DEM), who had led every single poll except the last one which had indicated a 46-46 tie between the two candidates. In the DF, unpopular incumbent governor Agnelo Queiroz (PT) was defeated by the first round, placing third with 20.1%, with senator Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB) and federal deputy Jofran Frejat (PR) advancing to the runoff. In Maranhão, Sarney opponent Flávio Dino (PCdoB), at the helm of a composite anti-Sarney coalition, was elected in the first round, with 63.5% against senator Edison Lobão Filho (PMDB), the candidate supported by the Sarney clan (outgoing governor Roseana Sarney) and the President. In Pará, after the first round, incumbent governor Simão Jatene (PSDB) found himself locked in a very close contest against Helder Barbalho (PMDB), the young son of famous corrupt senator Jader Barbalho (PMDB) – Barbalho led with 49.9% against 48.5% for the incumbent. In Pernambuco, Paulo Câmara (PSB) – backed by the late Eduardo Campos – was elected in a landslide, winning 68.1% against 31.1% for senator Armando Monteiro (PTB), the candidate supported by Dilma’s PT. In Rio Grande do Norte, where incumbent governor Rosalba Ciarlini (DEM) didn’t even bother seeking an impossible second term, the first round was inconclusive – Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB), the President of the Chamber and member of a highly powerful local political dynasty in RN, was in first with 47.3% against 42% for vice-governor Robinson Faria (PSD), who had broken with the outgoing DEM governor in 2011.

National Results – October 26, 2014

Turnout in the first round was 78.9%.

Dilma Rousseff (PT) 51.64%
Aécio Neves (PSDB) 48.36%

Blank votes 1.71%
Invalid votes 4.63%

President Dilma Rousseff (PT), after one of the most exciting and open-ended presidential races in the history of modern Brazilian democracy, was narrowly reelected at the helm of a polarized and divided Brazil, with 51.64% against 48.36% for her opponent, Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB) – who, in the end, came closer to defeating Dilma than anyone could have imagined a few shorts weeks and months beforehand.

Unlike in the first round, there were no surprises in the national results – despite tucanos clinging to faint hopes that Aécio would still prevail as the underdog, the result was in line with was expected: a close race, but with a narrow edge to the incumbent President. Aécio barely overperformed his final polling numbers (47-48%).

The 2014 election – decided by a margin of 3.28% in the decisive round – was the closest direct presidential election in the history of the Nova República (New Republic)/Sixth Republic (that is to say since the end of the military regime) and even the entire history of Brazil. Prior to 2014, the closest post-military election had been Collor’s 1989 victory over Lula, with 6.1% in the second round. Cardoso had won by the first round in 1994 and 1998, Lula won in 2002 and 2006 by 22.6% and 21.7% respectively and Dilma was elected to her first term following a 12.1% victory in the second round against the PSDB’s José Serra. To find a presidential race closer than 2014, we need to go back to the Fourth Republic (1945-1964), which had single-round (FPTP) presidential elections – in 1955, Juscelino Kubitschek won by 5.4%. The 1960 vice-presidential election (back then, the VP was elected separately) was closer than 2014 – João Goulart won by 2.4%.

IBOVESPA stock exchange value, Aug. 1 to Oct. 29 (source: Google Finance)

The 2014 presidential election painted the picture of a deeply polarized and divided country – a reality which has led several Brazilian observers to draw parallels to the US, especially with the rise of voting patterns polarized along regional lines in Brazil and of red states/blue states similar to those in the US (of course, it’s a very academic thing to do, since states don’t matter in presidential races in Brazil, unlike in the US). Dilma, for a whole host of reasons, has become a very polarizing and divisive President, a love-hate figure who has a very strong base of support but also a very vocal base of opponents. Her opponents accuse her of financial mismanagement, rising inflation, low economic growth, complicity in corruption scandals, disrespecting the Central Bank’s autonomy,  the unsustainable growth of the public sector, profligate spending and taxation, opaque and discretionary dealings with businesses and the private sector and the rapid increase of public credit and subsidies (loans by state-owned banks) to companies. Dilma’s economic policies and mediocre record on economic and fiscal issues has also won her the disapproval of Brazilian markets, shareholders, domestic and foreign investors.

During the campaign, it was quite interesting to observe how the value of the BF&M BOVESPA (the São Paulo stock exchange) and the value of the real to the US dollar fluctuated in line with polls and campaign events – the stock exchange fell whenever polls favourable to Dilma came out, rose whenever good news for Marina/Aécio came out. The stock exchange’s value declined throughout September, as the odds increasingly favoured a Dilma reelection, but the stock exchange rose after Dilma’s poor result on October 6 before falling during the runoff campaign as Aécio’s early momentum wore off. It fell to a low after Dilma’s reelection. Similarly, the real fell throughout September as polls favoured Dilma, and rose on October 6 before falling to a new low against the US dollar following Dilma’s reelection. Dilma’s critics point out that she will need to give clear indications and favourable impressions to the markets – notably over her choice of a finance minister to replace Guido Mantega, also disliked by the markets. Her supporters argue, on the other hand, that Dilma was elected by voters and doesn’t owe anything to the markets.

Dilma will face a tough second term. On an economic front, bad numbers have continued to pile up since the election: inflation breaking the upper band (6.5%), low growth, the government failing to meet its primary surplus targets, somber markets and a low real. The appointment of Joaquim Levy, a banker with a PhD from the University of Chicago, as her new finance minister suggests that she will reorient her economic policies in a more conservative, neoliberal direction.

Politically, she becomes a lame-duck president who will see her own party and many of her allies – especially the PMDB – quickly looking ahead to 2018, where there is no obvious government dauphin waiting in the wings. She already had a tough relationship with Congress during her first term, she might face an even tougher one. Finally, the Petrobras scandal is quite big, and it’s not clear how big it could go. The opposition and Dilma’s critics have been pounding her relentlessly on the scandal, and certain people have already talked of impeachment.

Winner’s margin of victory by municipality (source: Folha de S. Paulo)

More than ever before, the election was polarized on regional lines. It is quite interesting to note that, compared to 2010, when Dilma won by 12.1%, only one federal unit – the DF – switched from the PT to the PSDB, despite a much narrower PT victory of 3.3% in 2014. The 2014 election was therefore more intensely polarized on regional lines than ever before – something which many inevitably compare to the US, increasingly polarized with ‘red states’ and ‘blue states’.

Absolutely key to Dilma’s victory was her massive margins in the Nordeste. In the region as a whole, she won 71.7%, compared to 70.6% in 2010. There were significant swings in her favour in the states of Alagoas (+8.49%), Paraíba (+2.71%), Piauí (+8.32%) and most impressively so in Rio Grande do Norte (+10.42%) and Sergipe (+13.45%). In the states of Bahia (-0.69%), Ceará (-0.6%) and Maranhão (-0.33%), the petista vote fell by less than 1% since 2010. The only Nordeste state which did witness a significant swing in line with the national trend was Pernambuco, where Aécio improved on Serra’s 2010 numbers by 5.45% – although even in Eduardo Campos’ old bastion, Dilma still won 70.2% of the vote.

Dilma’s numbers in the Nordeste varied between a high of 78.8% in Maranhão and a low of 62.1% in Alagoas – unlike in 2010, when she had been held under 60% in Alagoas, Sergipe and Rio Grande do Norte, Dilma won over 60% in every single state. In the Nordeste, her best results came from the inland semi-arid sertão – the poorest region in the country – where she won over 70%, if not 80%, of the vote in the vast majority of municipalities. She was weaker in urban areas (a reversal of the pre-2006 situation, where Northeastern cities leaned more to the left than rural areas did), which are wealthier and economically developed/diversified – Dilma won 59.2% in Recife (PE), down from 66.4% in 2010; yet she won 58.1% in Natal (RN), 51.1% in Maceió (AL) and 59.6% in Aracaju (SE) – all of which she had lost in 2010. Dilma won by large, albeit reduced, margins in 68% in Fortaleza, CE (68%), São Luis, MA (70.4%) and Salvador, BA (67.3%). Aécio won 58% in Campina Grande (PB), the second largest city in Paraíba and an affluent high-tech/university centre.

Aécio’s inability to make significant inroads in the Nordeste was one of the factors which led to his narrow defeat. The case of Pernambuco is rather instructive: Marina had won the state with 48% on October 6, causing Dilma’s support to fall by 17.5% compared to the first round in 2010. While Aécio was not expected to come close to winning the state, which remains a left-leaning Northeastern state, he could likely have done better, if he had been able to carry more of Marina’s first round voters. He gained 5.5% from José Serra’s 2010 results in PE (still the largest pro-PSDB swing in the Nordeste).

The importance of the Nordeste to Dilma’s victory led some angry anti-Dilma voters on Twitter to respond with pretty undignified and appalling comments on Twitter, attacking the region and its voters as ‘stupid’ in pretty melodramatic terms (under the hashtag #RIPBrasil).

Results by municipality in MG (source: Estadão)

The state of Minas Gerais was the bellwether swing state of this election. Although it wasn’t the decisive state – Dilma won by 3.46 million votes nationally and by 550,601 votes in MG – it was a key battleground, as well as the closest state (that the tightest state was still carried with 52.4% also shows how polarized the election was). Every victorious presidential candidate in Brazilian democratic history has carried MG, with the exception of Vargas in 1950. Dilma carried MG – Aécio’s home state (she was born in MG as well, but her political career was in RS) – with 52.41%, a substantial 6% loss from 2010, suggesting that Aécio did have a home state effect even if he failed to carry MG.

Minas Gerais is an extremely diverse state, in some ways a microcosm of the country as a whole. The map to the right shows the results of the second round by municipality, revealing some fairly clearly delineated regional differences within the state. The northeast and southeast of the state – the mesorregiões of Noroeste do Minas, Norte do Minas, Jequitinhonha, Vale do Mucuri, Vale do Rio Doce and Zona da Mata – voted heavily for Dilma, particularly the northeastern half. A natural extension of the Nordeste, this region is significantly poorer (and browner) than the rest of the state. The far north of the state is considered part of the sertão and the semi-arid low rainfall polígono das secas. Dilma won over 75-80% in a number of municipalities in the northeastern extremity of Minas, numbers very similar to what she won just across state lines in Bahia.

% vulnerable to poverty in MG (Atlas do Desenvolvimento Humano no Brasil, UNDP)

On the other hand, Aécio did very well in the Belo Horizonte metro area – in the state capital, an affluent urban centre, he won 64.3%, compared to only 50.4% for Serra four years ago. He also swung several suburban municipalities, including Contagem. Aécio also improved in the southwest of the state, an economically developed and fairly well-off region demographically similar to neighboring areas in the state of São Paulo. The one oddity, however, was Dilma’s decisive victory in the Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaíba – the far west appendage of Minas – which is the wealthiest region in the state. Given that demographically similar areas across state lines in Goiás voted PSDB, I hypothesize that this region’s unusual left-wing leanings may be due to the strong regionalist movement in the area seeking statehood.

Another key state for Dilma’s victory was Rio de Janeiro, where she won 54.9%, down 5.5% from 60.5% in 2010. It was a pretty bad year for the left and the PT in particular in RJ, an historically left-leaning state. Dilma lost over 10% from her 2010 result in the city of Rio, squeaking out an extremely narrow 50.8% victory over Aécio. She was defeated in the affluent liberal city of Niterói across the Bay from Rio, with Aécio winning 54.9% compared to Serra’s 47.4% four years ago. Dilma, however, held tight in Rio’s poorer northern suburbs, suffering less severe loses compared to 2010. She won 69.1% in Duque de Caxias, 63.9% in Nova Iguaçu, 66% in São João de Meriti, 74.8% in Belford Roxo and 68% in São Gonçalo.

While the Nordeste trended even further to the left, Aécio raked up some impressive margins in the richer and traditionally right-leaning states of São Paulo and the South. In the key Southeast swing region (made up of MG, RJ, ES and SP), Aécio won 56.2% compared to 48.1% for Serra in 2010. In the South, which was Serra’s best region with 53.9% in 2010, Aécio won 58.9%. He also carried the Centre-West region with 57.4%, a major improvement from Serra’s 50.9% in the region in 2010. In the state of São Paulo, the tucano stronghold par excellence, Aécio won an historic 64.3% – meaning that Dilma lost a massive 10.3% from her 2010 support in the state. In the bloodbath, Aécio carried all of the state’s major cities and demolished the PT even in its old strongholds – the industrial ABC paulista (the birthplace of the PT) and Campinas’ industrial suburbs. In the right-leaning city of São Paulo, which José Serra had won with 53.6% in 2010, Aécio won 63.8%. In the ABC paulista, Dilma only narrowly retained Diadema, with 53.9% (66.5% in 2010); she lost in São Bernardo do Campo (falling from 56.2% to 44.1%), Santo André (falling from 48.8% to 36.7%) and Mauá (from 57% to 43.8%). Although the ABC paulista remains poorer than downtown São Paulo, the region has changed substantially since Lula was a trade union leader in the 1970s-1980s – it has become wealthier, economic liberalization has transformed the local economy and heavy industry has declined in favour of services and commerce.

The predominantly white and wealthy southern states of Paraná and Santa Catarina also swung heavily to Aécio – who won 61% and 64.6% in those states, +5.5% and +8% respectively from 2010. In Rio Grande do Sul – which really forms a distinctive regional subculture on its own, and is politically complicated – Aécio won 53.5%, and the swing was smaller (+2.6% on 2010). Perhaps Aécio would have preferred if Dilma carried RS – the state has voted for the loser in every election since 1989, except 2002!

The only federal unit to vote for a different party than in 2010 was the Federal District (Brasília) – which had the second largest swing of any federal unit in Brazil. Dilma had narrowly carried the DF with 52.8% in 2010; four years later, her vote share fell by 14.7% and Aécio won the DF with no less than 61.9%. The DF has the highest HDI of all federal units; it is a largely middle-class district, with an economy heavily driven by the federal government/public sector. While affluent, its public sector-driven economy has meant that the DF has usually leaned somewhat to the left. This year’s result is part of a broader trend which saw middle-class areas of all kind swing heavily towards Aécio, even those like the DF or Rio which have large public sector employment. Middle-class voters have shifted away from the PT since 2006, this year the swing was even more pronounced. Middle-class voters tend to be particularly sensitive to corruption and they largely dislike Dilma’s economic and fiscal policies. In the DF specifically, Dilma was also badly hurt by the unpopularity of the incumbent PT governor, defeated in the first round.

In the other states of the Centre-West (which all voted for Aécio), Goiás swung towards the PSDB (+6.4%) while Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul had smaller swings (+3.6% and +1.2% respectively).

The North is an odd region when it comes to politics – and it had some odd results this year. Dilma improved on her horrendous 2010 results in Acre and Roraima, gaining 6% and 7.7% respectively (she still lost both, 63.7-36.3 in AC and 59-41 in RR); she also improved in Pará (+4.2%) and Tocantins (+0.6%). However, the state of Amazonas – where she won 80.6% in 2010 – had the biggest swing in the country, with her support falling by 15.6 points to 65%. I’m not quite sure why Amazonas swung so heavily against her while Acre, Roraima and Pará swung particularly heavily towards her – local factors probably a big reason here.

First round results in municipalities with over 30% of the population receiving the Bolsa Família (source: Folha de S. Paulo)

As in the first round the main determinant of voting patterns were class, economic development, race and federal social programs. Going back to Veja and the Folha‘s interactive maps, looking at the results in those municipalities where over 30% of families receive the Bolsa Família is again very telling. There are some exceptions, but basically the vast, vast majority of municipalities where over three in ten receive the Bolsa Família voted for Dilma – usually by big margins. Few of these poor municipalities voted for Aécio. On the other hand, there are relatively few regions where less than 30% receive the Bolsa Família that voted for Dilma. The urban areas of the Nordeste, RJ, the Triângulo Mineiro, Minas’ Zona da Mata and rural RS appear as the only ‘wealthier’ regions which voted for Dilma.

All in all, the 2014 election continued geographic and demographic trends which begun in 2006. However, the class and regional polarization was much deeper in 2014 than in 2006 or 2010. Middle-class states and cities moved further to the right, while poor states and cities swung less heavily or even moved further to the left. The results in the cities of São Paulo, Curitiba (PR), Porto Alegre (RS), Goiânia (GO), Florianópolis (SC), Belo Horizonte (MG), Brasília and Rio de Janeiro – predominantly middle-class cities – are quite telling. They all moved further to the right, even in cities like Porto Alegre, Brasília, BH and Rio which had left-wing leanings in the past.

In gubernatorial runoffs, Rio de Janeiro reelected Luiz Fernando Pezão (PMDB) with 55.8% in a runoff against Marcelo Crivella, the evangelical bishop and senator. In anti-incumbent Rio Grande do Sul, incumbent governor Tarso Genro (PT) was unsurprisingly defeated by a wide margin by centre-right candidate José Ivo Sartori (PMDB), who won 61.2%. In the DF, no surprises as senator Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB) defeated Jofran Frejat (PR) with 55.6%. In Goiás, incumbent tucano governor Marconi Perillo won a second term with 57.4% of the vote. In Rio Grande do Norte, vice-governor Robinson Faria (PSD) defeated Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB) by a comfortable margin, winning 54.4%. In Pará, governor Simão Jatene (PSDB) won reelection narrowly with 51.9% in a close contest with Helder Barbalho (PMDB). Only one woman was elected governor in 2014, in Roraima.

Continue to read below the fold for full state-by-state results.