The race to replace Lula

I will blog extensively about the 2010 Brazilian presidential race, as it kicks into full gear, in the coming weeks and months. But for now, all you should know is this: We might actually have a race on our hands.

 

For more than a year Jose Serra - likely main opposition candidate and Sao Paulo state governor - has held commanding, fist-tightening, double-digit leads in polls of likely candidates. It looked as though Serra could snore his way to the presidency.  

 

But Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s chief of staff and hand-picked candidate from his Workers Party, has steadily surged in the polls in jaw-dropping fashion, catching most people by surprise.

 

She has come a long way, but the only way she had to go was up. 

 

Consider this: In February of 2008, when the first mock presidential poll was conducted, Rousseff had 4.5% of the vote. Yes, 4.5%! That is four, point, five. Way back in early 08, Serra commanded 38%.

 

In another poll, at the end of 2008, Rousseff was still polling at pathetic single digits (7.5%) despite the fact she was the ‘right hand woman’ of Lula - a president who, I remind you, has in upwards of 80% approval ratings at home and who could probably win the contest of President of the Free World if there was such a thing.

 

There were calls for Lula and the Workers Party leadership to dump Rousseff while there was still time and pick someone new. But Lula resisted those calls and maybe it paid off.

 

In June of 2009, Rousseff had steady gained in the polls to about 18% of those respondents who said they would vote for her for president, still way behind Serra who was holding steady at about 38%, still far ahead of anyone else.

 

In a new poll last week, Rousseff has surged to 27% while Serra has stagnated at about 33%.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, yes, we have a race on our hands.

 

Keep in mind Brazil is still in ‘pre-candidate’ phase, meaning the official selection of candidates by the political parties has not taken place yet, but that is just a formality. One of the big worries of Serra fans and political analysts is that he has yet to fully commit himself to actually announcing his candidacy, saying he will declare at the “right time.”

 

Even The Economist has a new article raising the question of Serra’s ‘patient’ presidential strategy.

 

Call it patient or call it stalling or whatever else, but that tactic seems to be reminiscent of a call from Rudy Giuliani’s playbook in the 2008 Republican primary in the United State when he stalled his full-fledged candidacy - essentially sitting out the first 10 rounds of a 12 round fight - while in the meantime his party adversaries caught up and surpassed him in the polls and never looked back. And we all see where that led Giuliani’s presidential ambitions. 

 

(Giuliani, by the way, is apparently going to be hired to help advise Rio de Janeiro officials on security-related issues ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. No word if he is also advising the Serra campaign, but for some reason I doubt it).  

 

Jose Serra is no Rudy Giuliani, and it is wrong to compare Brazil presidential elections to those in the US.

 

Why? Because in Brazil the campaign in a sprint, not a marathon like it is in the US.

 

This year it will be even more the case. This is Brazil, remember, and you know what that means: World Cup 2010. Everything else - marriage, health, work, and, for darned sure, politics - fights for second or third place behind futebol on the priority list of ‘most important things.’

 

Murillo de Aragão, a top political analyst, recently told Carta Capital magazine the obvious: Most Brazilians won’t fully turn their attention to the presidential race, and who they want to lead their country after Lula, until after the World Cup is over in July.

 

That means the race for the presidency of Brazil, South America’s economic and political giant, will likely be decided in the three month period between mid July and the end of September with the culmination in the voting on October 3, 2010.

 

But while Serra and Rousseff are in the poll position, clearly the #1 and #2 candidates at this juncture, there are a few other candidates out there who could swing the election, one in particular who for sure will garner a lot of attention for all the right reasons. For a hint, read this previous blog post. More on that later, promise…