Brasilia – Social Democratic candidate Geraldo Alckmin continued garnering support Wednesday for his bid to unseat President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in an Oct. 29 runoff, a quest that seemed quixotic only weeks ago but that is becoming more imaginable by the day.
The incumbent, meanwhile, said he was still certain he would win a second four-year term with the “power of the people” behind him.
Lula, who weeks ago led Alckmin in the polls by more than 20 percent, won 48.6 percent of the vote on Sunday, compared with 41.4 percent for his main challenger. The president’s unexpected failure to achieve an absolute majority forced the contest to a second round.
Meeting in Brasilia with seven governors-elect chosen in the weekend balloting, a seemingly confident Lula said that he will win the runoff “because the people must elect the best candidate.”
“We’re going to win because the people are going to choose on the basis of the things they can see, of the things they have achieved,” said Lula, who noted that, unlike in the lead-up to the first round of voting, he will be participating in the televised debates prior to the runoff.
The incumbent said that he has decided to accept the playing field established by his opponent, who gained ground by attacking Lula over the corruption scandals that have rocked the ruling Workers Party, or PT, over the past 18 months.
“The Brazilian people deserve a better discussion, but if they want to put these matters on the table, we’re going to have an in-depth discussion on ethics and corruption,” Lula said.
The latest scandal to engulf the PT arose from an attempt by members of Lula’s campaign to purchase a dossier falsely linking Alckmin and another leading opposition figure to a notorious scam involving the sale of ambulances to the state at vastly inflated prices.
The party was already battling allegations of ties to gambling kingpins at the beginning of Lula’s administration in January 2003, while last year brought revelations about an illegal PT slush-fund used to buy votes in Congress.
The president’s intention now, however, is to focus the debate on the 1994-2002 government of his predecessor Fernando Henrique Cardoso, like Alckmin of the PSDB party. That administration also ended its second term embroiled in scandals, though none on the scale of the ones that have engulfed Lula’s party.
Lula said the difference is that there was no effort to battle corruption during Cardoso’s administration, while during his first four years such wrongdoing has been investigated “like never before.”
The president also said that the PSDB is seeking to make corruption the central issue because “it has nothing to add to the discussion about economic and social policies or about development.”
“The studies that compare (Cardoso’s) eight years in office and our four years” are telling, Lula said.
While Lula has garnered the support of the governors-elect of the states of Acre, Amapa, Bahia, Ceara, Piaui, Sergipe and Tocantins, Alckmin on Wednesday picked up endorsements from the new governors of Rondonia and Roraima.
However, the continued strength of Alckmin’s campaign will depend on how effectively he can incorporate PSDB colleagues Aecio Neves and Jose Serra, elected Sunday to lead Brazil’s two most populous states, Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo.
Neves and Serra on Sunday obtained a combined total of 20 million votes, and if the vast majority of those voters back Alckmin in the runoff that could prove decisive in his effort to unseat the incumbent.
Alckmin already had received the endorsement of the leader of the center-right PMDB in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Gov. Anthony Garotinho, a favorite of the evangelical Protestants who make up an estimated 15 percent of the Brazilian electorate but a figure who also inspires mistrust on the part of some members of the PSDB.
The social democratic challenger, meanwhile, was continuing to negotiate Wednesday with the leftist PDT, which in Sunday’s election backed Cristovam Buarque, a former education minister under Lula who received 2.65 percent of the vote.
PDT officials said Wednesday that, although he has not stated it publicly, Buarque would rather support Alckmin than Lula because he believes the president, who failed in three previous bids for Brazil’s highest office, “betrayed” those who voted him into power in 2002.
Brazil’s big three television networks have already announced plans for three debates during the abbreviated runoff campaign, with the first set for next Sunday on Bandeirantes, the second for Oct. 17 on TV Gazeta and the third to be broadcast Oct. 27 on Globo.
There is little in the way of major policy differences between Lula and Alckmin, however, so it is rather the perceptions of the character of the candidates – and of their respective parties – that are likely to be decisive.
