http://www.opendemocracy.net/arthur-ituassu/brazil’s-big-election-dilma-vs-josé
Look at the RW trolls in the comments section. Yes, we have our own "teabaggers".
Brazil's presidential election is moving to a climax. A victory for the favourite candidate Dilma Rousseff would also be President Lula's, says Arthur Ituassu in Rio de Janeiro.Brazil’s nationwide elections on 3 October 2010 will see more than 130 million voters choose a president to succeed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as governors, fifty-four (of eighty-one) senators, 513 members of the national legislature, and more than 1,000 state representatives. But this year’s election is important for more than its size: for it will be the first since democracy was re-established in Brazil after two
decades of military rule (which ended in 1985), and the first time since 1989 that voters will not have
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as an option to vote for. All in all, this is one of the biggest celebrations of democracy in the world.
But even if Lula is officially out of the
contest, the departing two-term president is not out of the game. Very much to the contrary: after eight years in office, with almost 80% of Brazilians
rating him as a “good” or “excellent” president, Lula’s enormous legacy will transcend the particular acts of his government and substantially mark the Brazilian political scene for the next decade and even more (see "
Brazil's new political identity", 2 November 2009).
The first and most direct political manifestation of this legacy is almost certain to be the election of his favoured candidate Dilma Rousseff to the Brazilian presidency. Rousseff, like Lula himself a long-term militant of the
Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party / PT), is in current opinion-polls running twenty points ahead of her main adversary, the experienced José Serra (who represents the
Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social Democratic Party / PSDB).
Dilma Rousseff’s approximately 50%-30%
lead over José Serra will, if spoiled or blank votes are excluded, ensure this daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant a first-round victory in what will be the first election she has ever fought; this, moreover, against a candidate who has been governor of São Paulo; federal representative of São Paulo state in the Brazilian congress; mayor of the city of São Paulo; and successively minister of planning and health in
Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government (1995-2002).
(more at link)About the authorArthur Ituassu is a professor in the department of social communication at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro. His website is
here.
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