Three election surveys showed Rousseff was the frontrunner in the first round ballot scheduled for October 5, but would lose to Silva, a former environment minister, in a likely runoff.

The trusted polling firm Ibope said the incumbent was on track to claim 37% of votes compared to Silva’s 33% support in the first round. DataFolha, another polling company, showed Rousseff would win 35% of votes to Silva’s 34%.

But according to election forecasts by both Ibope and DataFolha, Rousseff would then lose to Silva in the second round of the elections on October 23.

Brazilian media reported that Rousseff, 66, has gone on the offensive in recent days, bent on chipping away at Silva’s second-round advantage. Rousseff aimed a volley of attacks at Silva, 56, on Monday night, during the second televised debate of the presidential race.

The incumbent questioned her rival’s ability to pay for her myriad campaign promises, including all-day public schools, while at the same time moving away from oil production.

With Silva now incarnating the movement for political change in Brazil, traditionally the banner of Rousseff’s ruling Workers’ Party (PT), Rousseff has started suggesting she would do things differently if entrusted with a second term as president.

“Obviously if there is a new administration… new politics and a new team would be necessary,” Rousseff reportedly told a meeting of business leaders in the city of Belo Horizonte on Wednesday. “What I don’t want to do is give the impression that I think everything has been accomplished.”

Her campaign team has also petitioned Brazilian election authorities to open an investigation into Silva’s finances, claiming she has omitted income from several public speaking engagements in documents filed with the election body.

Rousseff’s campaign claimed there were inconsistencies between Silva’s reported income and the earnings of a business she owns, according to the leading Folha de S. Paulo daily.

Rousseff has seen her approval ratings plummet in recent months, leading many to wonder whether the Workers Party will be swept aside after 12 years in power.

The Brazilian national team’s disappointing performance at the World Cup has been touted as one of the reasons for her sudden drop in popularity. But perhaps the biggest blow came with news that the country’s economy had slipped into recession this year.

Meanwhile, Silva appears to be surfing on a wave of sympathy for her Socialist Party after the shocking death of its presidential candidate Eduardo Campos in a plane crash on August 13.

Silva, who split with the PT in 2009, became the Socialist Party’s new candidate following the tragedy, and saw her approval ratings skyrocket overnight. It remains to be seen whether she can maintain that momentum as the election campaign enters the final stretch.

Mercopress

The election for the successor of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the most popular leader in Brazil since Getúlio Vargas in the fifties, promises to be the most hard-fought in recent history and the first since 1989 in which the former union leader is not running.

Lula, whose support stands at 80%, took office January 1st, 2003, was re-elected in October 2006 but is barred constitutionally from a third consecutive mandate.

The president handpicked as his political heir Dilma Rousseff, 62, an economist with a guerrilla past who performed as Mines and Energy minister and later cabinet chief. Named the ‘Iron Lady’ of Lula’s administration she is known for her tough character and has never run for an elected post.

Rousseff has the support of Lula’s Workers Party and most other parties that make up the ruling coalition, mainly the Brazilian Democratic Movement party, PMDB, who named Michel Temer as her running companion in the presidential ticket.

The opposition has chosen José Serra, former governor and mayor of São Paulo, former Planning and Health minister under ex President Fernando Cardoso (1995/2003), who as presidential candidate was defeated by Lula in October 2002. Serra belongs to the Brazilian Social Democracy party (PSDB) and counts with the support of other minority parties.

The latest opinion polls anticipate a tough fight vote for vote with both candidates showing a support of 40%.

A distant third is environmentalist Marina Silva from the Green Party and former Environment minister in Lula’s cabinet for six years, who abandoned the Workers Party after thirty years militancy over differences with Rousseff over ‘aggressive development plans’ for the Amazon.

Ms Silva has a vote intention of 10%, which makes her crucial for any runoff since none of the two main candidates is forecasted to manage the 50% plus one vote next 3 October. Another nine candidates only account for less than 2% of vote intention.

Mercopress

Journalist Luiz Lanzetta resigned from the Communications Department of Ms Rousseff’s campaign, from the ruling Workers Party.

According to the weekly magazine Veja, Lanzetta together with a retired police officer and a retired military officer, both experts in intelligence gathering and bugging were planning to mount a network to collect information on Brazilian Social Democrat (PSDB), José Serra the most serious opposition to the incumbent candidate.

Lanzetta in a Sunday release admits having met with the former police officer with the purpose of “monitoring adversaries”, but denied point blank having done spying on Serra.

Serra accused Ms Rousseff of allowing her advisors to get involved in clandestine operations. The issue is expected to have political and judicial repercussions this week.

PSDB House representative Gustavo Pruet announced he would be summoning to Congress all those involved in the alleged espionage plot to listen to their statements and is also considering presenting the case in court.

However the head of the Workers Party grouping in the Lower House Cândido Vacarezza said that “opposition is trying to distract the political debate with accusations” because Rousseff keeps advancing in public opinion polls and Serra is trailing.

The statement is ambiguous because according to the latest May opinion polls both contenders are tied at 37% vote intention, although compared to April Ms Rousseff was up five points and Serra down 3 points.

Rousseff has been gaining ground on Serra in other recent polls, thanks to an improving economy and support from outgoing President Lula da Silva, whose administration is considered good or excellent by 75% of people surveyed.

Meanwhile President Lula da Silva was fined by the Brazilian Superior Electoral Tribunal for the fifth time for having campaigned in favor of Ms Rousseff. The president will have to pay approximately US$ 4.500 US dollars for calling on the unions’ federation, last May first, to give their vote to the incumbent candidate.

“There’s much to do in this country, we need continuity,” said Lula in direct reference to Ms Rousseff, thus breaching electoral legislation which impedes the president from campaigning.

The claim was presented by the Democrats Party a close ally of opposition candidate José Serra.

Brazilians will be voting on the successor of president Lula October 3.

Mercopress

"The only leader capable of containing the image of United States badly affected by the Iraq war is Obama," said Patricia Ferrari in an interview with leading Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo. She admitted lobbying among the 30.000 US expatriates "without receiving a cent."

Her job will be to organize conferences, talk to possible voters send emails and keep track of US voters in Brazil.

"Obama is the presidential candidate which most enthusiasm has awaken in US history," said script writer Mike Boyungton who left the US for Brazil when President Bush was reelected in 2004 and is helping Ms Ferrari, according to the Brazilian press.

The Republicans have Kevin Ivers, living in Brazil for the past 12 months and linked to business circles, to promote the candidacy of Senator Mc Cain.

"Obama's image is growing," admitted Ivers but he also underlined that "the campaign is just beginning" and candidate McCain has "all the credentials needed to win next November."

Meanwhile the Colombian press announced that the Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate Mc Cain "will be visiting Colombia towards the end of the year" as part of his campaign and to reaffirm his international standing.

In Washington an undisclosed member of Senator Mc Cain's team admitted "there's a chance the candidate will be visiting Colombia," and if so sometime "before November." Press reports in Bogotá said that Colombian president Alvaro Uribe "has already been informed of the visit."

Colombia is one of the closest US allies in Latinamerica and the largest recipient of military aid. The US and Colombia signed a free trade agreement in 2006 which has congressional ratification pending because the Democrat majority questions the human rights and labor rights record of the country.

Republican candidate McCain this week again attacked Democrats for not supporting the US main ally in Latinamerica.

Mercopress

In early October I was talking to someone closely involved with the São Paulo PSDB leadership who said that the Workers Party (PT) of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was wrong if it thought the ongoing political crisis was running out of steam. Something would occur which would show Lula that he would not have a clear run at a second mandate next year. I assumed he was referring to some ambush the PSDB was preparing for just before next year’s election. “Oh no, it will happen sooner, perhaps this month”, he said.

Events in the last few days of October show he may have been speaking the truth. These events included: an article by Veja magazine claiming that Lula’s election campaign had been partially funded by Cuba; a PSDB call for a Congressional inquiry (CPI) into the double entry bookkeeping method of the PT’s campaign (known as Caixa 2); and a call by a leading PSDB member, Tasso Jereissati, for impeachment proceedings to be considered against Lula.

However, not everything is going as smoothly as the PSDB leadership might have imagined at the start of October. Its president, Eduardo Azevedo, resigned on October 25 after admitting that he had used the Caixa 2 and received US$ 312,000 (700,000 reais) to pay off a debt from Marcos Valério, the “banker” at the center of the scandal.

This has given the PT plenty of ammunition with which to defend itself in the “war” which some sections of the media say has broken out. Whether it is a real “war” or a phony war we can be sure of one thing – it will be a dirty one.

The cover of the current issue of Isto É magazine shows tanks blasting away at each other and a headline declaring that the truce between the PT and the PSDB is over. This seems a rather exaggerated portrayal of the situation.

My feeling is that these latest developments are just skirmishes in a long struggle which will unfold over the coming year. Instead of a head-to-head contest involving just two parties slugging it out, we will see a conflict of attrition fought on various fronts, with shifting positions and alliances.

Both sides have strengths and weaknesses. The PT, for example, is still strong and has survived the onslaught of the last six months surprisingly well despite the fact that it has lost several of its top leaders. It is true that some members, including Congressmen, have defected to the recently-formed radical PSOL party but the overwhelmingly majority has remained loyal to Lula.

The party elected a former government minister, Ricardo Berzoini, as its new president rather than the more left-wing rival candidate. However, the loser has been made a vice president and the party executive as a whole has moved further to the left.

Instead of being a setback to Lula, this is actually an advantage since the more left-wing element now no longer has anything to complain about and will be duty bound to support him. Since any radical leftist candidate, such as the PSOL’s Senator Heloísa Helena, would not make the second round her supporters would have no choice but Lula. Even if they are disillusioned with Lula, it is hard to see them voting for a PSDB candidate, for example.

Another point in the PT’s favor is the fact that Lula is its undisputed leader and no other PT candidate is conceivable at this moment. Lula can also use his position as president to his advantage and ensure the continued support of the tens of millions of poorer and working class Brazilians who identify with him.

Many, if not most of these staunch supporters, do not read the press and are uninterested in the ins and outs of the political machinations in Brasília. Brazilian voters do not necessarily hold past misdeeds against their political leaders. We only have to look at the likes of Antonio Carlos Magalhães, Paulo Maluf or Jader Barbalho who have been re-elected in the past despite serious allegations against them.

No Easy Ride for Lula Next Time

Despite these strengths, the PT is weak in several areas. First of all, Lula no longer enjoys the commanding lead he had before the scandal broke in May. This was when the first allegations appeared that the PT had been paying bribes to members of allied parties to ensure their votes in Congress. Polls show a big drop in his popularity and it is unlikely that he will ever regain his previous position.

He and the PT have certainly lost the votes of many members of the middle class and business sector which backed him in 2002. This means he will have a tougher time during the campaign. We will have no repetition of the last campaign when his lead was so commanding that all he had to do in the TV debates with the other candidates was turn up.

He will not be able to dodge the issue of corruption, particularly if there are further revelations or no satisfactory conclusions to the various Congressional inquiries.

He will also have to be careful not to appear holier than thou. The PT has lost any reputation it had of being more honorable and ethical than the other parties. Although individual PT members do not appear to have benefited financially from the corrupt goings-on, the party has been seen to be as unprincipled as any other.

Lula will have to persuade voters that the PT has learned its lesson and will be more responsible if it gains a new mandate. That will be a hard task since his running mate will probably be a candidate from another party, such as the PMDB or PSB.

This means any second Lula mandate will be another broad alliance and it is precisely this overstretched alliance which has caused the current crisis. The scandal has revealed that the glue which bound this odd combination of interests, which ranged from Communists to Evangelicals, was money.

At the same time, the PSDB is not in quite as strong a position as is often assumed. First of all, it is not the only party which will put forward a presidential candidate. Secondly, it does not have a definite candidate which the whole party is behind and, thirdly, the resignation of Azevedo has weakened it strategically and morally.

Although the PSDB will probably provide the opponent to Lula, should he seek re-election, this is not a foregone conclusion. The two other large parties, the PMDB and PFL, have strong potential candidates in Anthony Garotinho and Cesar Maia respectively.

The PFL provided Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s vice president, Marco Maciel, during his two mandates but this does not mean it will automatically sign up this time. The PFL has been the main official opposition party along with the PSDB but has not always seen eye to eye with it.

The PMDB, although officially an ally of the government, has a large anti-government wing which will insist on the party putting forward its own candidate, probably Garotinho.

PSDB Faces Internal Battle Over Candidate

Unlike these other parties, the PSDB still does not have a definite or outstanding candidate. It has two big names – José Serra, the mayor of São Paulo, who lost to Lula in the last election, and Geraldo Alckmin, the state governor of São Paulo.

Opinions polls show that Serra would do better against Lula than Alckmin but Serra is still in his first year of office and would have to step down, thereby breaking a pledge to voters that he would complete his mandate. Alckmin, on the other hand, faces no such moral dilemma.

It is doubtful that voters would be particularly annoyed if Serra were to resign and run for the presidency again and there is a good chance that this will happen. This would not go down well with the Alckmin camp since Alckmin is not as experienced as Serra or as well known nationally. He is rather faceless and has little charisma.

However, there are signs that he is using (if not abusing) his contacts in the media to help gain the PSDB nomination. The current issue of Exame magazine has a flattering cover story claiming that the business sector would overwhelmingly back Alckmin against Lula.

How an obvious assumption like this merits such extensive coverage is beyond my understanding but it must have made Alckmin pleased. A week earlier, the São Paulo leisure supplement of Veja had a gushing cover story about Alckmin’s photogenic wife and portrayed her as paragon of social virtue.

The resignation of the PSDB national president, Eduardo Azevedo, has not only damaged the party’s reputation for probity but also upset the Minas Gerais section. The funds he received were for his campaign for the governorship of Minas Gerais in 1998.

Before this scandal erupted, the current governor of Minas Gerais, Aécio Neves, was one of the PSDB’s rising stars and a possible presidential candidate. However, much of the financing of the scandal was done through two banks based in Minas Gerais, Banco Rural and BMG.

As a result Neves has lost his impetus and is no longer in the running. Neves has publicly criticized the “São Paulo power struggle” and has called on the party to tone down its attacks on Lula.

Unfortunately for Neves, Serra is now interim president until November 18 when he is likely to be replaced by none other than Senator Tasso Jereissati who raised the issue of impeachment. Sorting out the Minas Gerais faction is another issue the PSDB will have to deal with in choosing its candidate.

It may also find it has to defend itself against allegations of corruption during the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Members of the PT and other parties have suggested that bribes were paid to Congressmen to ensure their support for the constitutional amendment which allowed Cardoso to seek (and win) a second term of office.

They have also claimed that the privatization program, which the PT fiercely opposed, was marked by corruption. The PT has also been trying to revive allegations that senior members of the previous administration, including Cardoso, were involved in setting up illegal bank accounts abroad. Although these allegations are almost 10 years old and have been discredited this will not stop the PT using them if it suits its purpose.

In conclusion, the Veja article alleging that the PT received illegal funds from Cuba has been met with widespread skepticism even among the anti-Lula section of the press. The story is thin, to say the least, and one of the main figures alleged to have been involved in the operation is dead.

The two people who make the allegations differ over how much was involved, with one claiming US$ 3 million and the other US$ 1.3 million. Whether it is true or not, it is another example of the kind of “revelation” we can expect in the months to come.

John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish writer and consultant with long experience of Brazil. He is based in São Paulo and runs his own company Celtic Comunicações. This article originally appeared on his site www.brazilpoliticalcomment.com.br. He can be contacted at jf@celt.com.br.

© John Fitzpatrick 2005

In an official note released on Saturday, October 29, the embassy claims that there is a "campaign of lies against Cuba and the Brazilian government." Through its embassy, the Cuba government declares that it never interfered in Brazilian domestic affairs.

In an interview with Veja, two ex-advisers to the municipal government of Ribeirão Preto during the mayoral administration of the current minister of Finance, Antonio Palocci, affirmed having heard that the Cuban government sent funds for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election campaign in 2002.

One of the ex-advisers, Rogério Buratti, said he was approached by Ralf Barquete, finance secretary in Palocci’s government. According to Buratti, Barquete was looking for a way to bring US$ 3 million from Cuba.

"I know that the money arrived, but I don’t know how," Buratti affirmed, according to the magazine. Barquete died last year.

The other ex-adviser, Vladimir Poleto, stated that he had transported three cases of liquor with him on a flight from Brasí­lia to Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo. There he delivered them to Barquete, who reportedly commented that the cases contained US$ 1.4 million.

Agência Brasil

There is not a single political leader who has not an eye turned to the cascading scandals happening in Brasília, the capital of Brazil, now, at the same time that he keeps the other one attentive to next year’s presidential election. In the political parties and in Congress, all of them haggle and say that is impossible to present candidates names before the corruption dust settles down, but…

But it’s a lie. That’s just an expedient to allow them to maintain secret one of the most ferocious dark-room fights ever registered in the Brazilian Republic’s history. All the records seem to have been beaten, as well, because we have never seen this kind of plunder promoted by parties from the government base, under the auspices of the government itself.

The first one to the well…

President Lula swings between running for re-election, the most probable, and considering his presidential career finished.  Actually, he is more inclined to run, at least as a way to beat the crisis and save his image. He is much less worried now about the chances of reforming the country,  since he  has for a long time forsaken this project. His chances of winning are low at the moment and, if the elections were held today, he would lose. In October 2006, he might win though, depending on who his main opponent might be.

In the toucans nest (the PSDB) – the nucleus with the largest amount of candidates, but not the most combative – the strategy is to wear down the President as much as they can, without putting his mandate at risk. Thew want to lead him to a failed candidacy, in 2006. All of the PSDB’s honchos agree in this particular, but, that’s the only thing they can agree upon.

What we see is that when José Serra, who lost to Lula in the past elections, appears leading the polls, his own party comes along trying to wear him down. Heading this assault is former-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who, contrary to what he guarantees, is a candidate and very much so.

The sociologist counts on the prolongation of the crisis to weaken Lula and to create conditions for an institutional chaos, which would make him sole candidate in his own party and in other sectors. A kind of country’s savior…

But there are other suitors in the PSDB. Men like the São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, a little hopeless, but still carrying the strength of his powerful post. And governor Aécio Neves, from Minas Gerais, working in silence and aligning himself behind a kind of Minas Gerais coalition: he would be running for president, while the current vice-president José Alencar would go for governor and the former-president Itamar Franco for senator. A very serious threesome, with candidates from different parties, unless the three of them decide to join the PMDB.

…is the one who drinks clean water.

In the PFL, the order is to keep insisting on Rio’s mayor Cesar Maia, even for lack of any other option. They are intent on calling attention to the mayor’s achievements and his image of experienced and competent manager. After all, he resisted well to the federal government’s squeeze, which had the intention of demoralizing him in the week his name was mentioned as possible candidate, by way of a federal intervention in Rio’s municipal hospitals.

The PFL and the PSDB, might run separate campaigns in the first turn, but they will be united in the second round, with the loser supporting the winner in a bout against Lula.

The PMDB continues open to a thousand and one possibilities. The first one was to support the current president re-election, something now discarded. The idea of launching their own candidate is always appealing, but who? The party leadership has already made known to former governor of Rio, Anthony Garotinho, what they think about his candidacy: “Don’t even dream about it.”  They won’t allow the husband of Rio’s governor, Mrs. Rosinha, to use the party unless his intentions are to run to Congress as a Senate for the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The chosen could be among governors who belong to the PMDB, but no one would be strong enough for now to face the PT, PSDB or PFL candidates. They could be Germano Rigotto, from Rio Grande do Sul, and Roberto Requião, from Paraná, the two brightest names at the moment. They don’t have the backing of the party’s Paulista (from São Paulo) base though
.
There are those who believe in a maneuver as risky as fascinating: the entrance of Minas governor Aécio Neves into the PMDB, to be launched candidate. That’s possible, but it doesn’t seem to be an easy task.

There are other suitors. Roberto Freire was already launched by the PPS. In the PDT, there are three names for the isolated adventure: Cristovam Buarque, who left the ruling PT and recently joined the party; Maurício Strap, former-president of the Supreme Court of Justice and Roberto Mangabeira Unger, political scientist. The P-Sol will test senator Heloísa Helena’s popularity,  and the Prona might insist on presenting Dr. Enéas once again.

Outside this list we will hardly have other names. That would explain why everybody has been reciting the Arab proverb that says “the first one to the well is the one who drinks clean water”.

Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio’s daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a representative of the Brazilian Press Association, in Brasília. He welcomes your comments at carloschagas@hotmail.com.