Rousseff Increases Lead to 15 Points in Brazil Runoff Poll by CNT/Sensus
Brazilian presidential frontrunner Dilma Rousseff tripled her lead over opposition rival Jose Serra four days ahead of the country’s runoff, a Sensus poll showed.
Support for Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s former Cabinet chief, rose to 51.9 percent from 46.8 percent in the previous Sensus poll taken Oct. 18-19. Support for Serra, a former Sao Paulo governor, declined to 36.7 percent from 41.8 percent. Serra, 68, trails Rousseff by 15.2 percentage points, up from five points in the previous poll.
The poll surveyed 2,000 people from Oct. 23-25 and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
Near-daily allegations of government corruption are failing to cut into Rousseff’s support among voters who are content with Lula’s track record for creating jobs and reducing poverty, said Andre Cesar, founder of Brasilia-based political risk analysis firm CAC.
“The opposition didn’t present anything new on the economic front to win voters in the second round,” Cesar said in a telephone interview. “Rousseff is a clear favorite to win.”
Brazil’s currency, the real, fell 0.8 percent to 1.7166 per U.S. dollar at 11:54 a.m. New York time.
Economic Issues
Support for Rousseff, 62, rose and backing for Serra fell in four out of five Brazilian regions as themes such as abortion and religion faded and candidates focused on the economy, said Clesio Andrade, head of the National Transport Confederation, which commissioned the poll. Lula, who is barred from seeking a third consecutive term under Brazil’s constitution, campaigned actively with Rousseff over the past week.
“The return of President Lula to the campaign helped produce these results,” Andrade told reporters in Brasilia.
Rousseff won 46.9 percent of votes in the first-round ballot on Oct. 3, to Serra’s 32.6 percent. Her lead dwindled immediately following the vote, according to polls, shrinking to 4.1 percentage points in an Oct. 11-13 Sensus survey. As that poll had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, Rousseff and Serra were technically tied.
Now the candidates’ accusations are tending to cancel each other out, said Ricardo Guedes, director of the Sensus Institute. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia, Guedes said voters are focusing more on discussion of the issues, which benefits Rousseff because voters expect her to maintain Lula’s policies that have lifted 21 million Brazilians out of poverty since 2003 and created more than 14 million jobs. Latin America’s biggest economy will grow 7.3 percent this year, according to central bank estimates.
Investor Focus
With Rousseff’s election looking more assured, investors will continue to focus on the composition of the next economic team, HSBC Global Research’s Clyde Wardle said in a note to clients today. The markets would welcome a “prompt replacement of Finance Minister Mantega -- leading proponent of the currency war,” and would favor a central bank president with “political clout to withstand pressures to intervene even more aggressively” to support Brazil’s real, the report added.
Serra and Rousseff will take part in a final live debate tomorrow night on TV Globo.
To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Luiza Rabello in Brasilia at mrabello@bloomberg.net; Iuri Dantas in Brasilia at idantas@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at jgoodman19@bloomberg.net
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