Global General

Rousseff faces runoff in Brazil election

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-10-04 09:32

A combination photo shows Brazilian presidential candidates Dilma Rousseff (L) for the ruling Worker's Party and Jose Serra for the PSDB party gesturing after voting at their polling stations in Porto Alegre (Rousseff) and Sao Paulo (Serra), October 3, 2010. Both candidates will face off once more in a runoff on October 31 after none won more than 50 percent of the vote. [Photo/Agencies]

SAO PAULO- Ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff placed a strong first in Brazil's presidential election on Sunday, but a runoff looked inevitable after some voters were turned off at the last minute by a corruption scandal and her views on social issues.

Rousseff, a former guerrilla leader who vows to continue the pragmatic center-left policies that have made Brazil one of the world's fastest-growing emerging market economies, had 46.2 percent of valid votes with 94 percent of ballots counted.

She needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff on October 31 and so she will now face her nearest rival, opposition candidate and former Sao Paulo state governor Jose Serra, who had 32.9 percent of the counted votes.

An unexpected late surge by a third candidate, the Green Party's Marina Silva, came largely at Rousseff's expense. Silva had almost 20 percent of valid ballots and her supporters will now be a highly prized voting bloc in the runoff.

Rousseff is favored to beat Serra in the runoff and become the first woman to lead Brazil, although a first-round victory would have given her a stronger mandate to push through reforms such as changes to Brazil's onerous tax laws.

Her campaign has been helped by red-hot economic growth and the support of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is wildly popular and handpicked Rousseff, his former chief of staff, to succeed him.

Yet recent allegations of a kickback scheme involving a former top aide to Rousseff, plus questions among evangelical Christians about her positions on abortion and other social issues, appear to have instilled just enough doubt in voters' minds to cost her a first-round victory.

Rousseff had spent the past month well above the 50 percent support level in pre-election polls, and the disappointing performance is likely to revive questions about her relative lack of charisma and thin executive experience.

Valdeci Baiao da Silva, a security officer in Brasilia, said the good economic times had made him a Lula supporter -- but he voted for Serra on Sunday because Rousseff seemed unprepared and unpredictable.

"I think she might even disappoint (Lula)," he said.

At a church service in Brasilia on Sunday, Pastor Otaviano Miguel da Silva urged his followers not to vote for candidates from Rousseff's ruling Workers' Party because "it approves of homosexuality, lesbianism, and is in favor of abortion."

Brazil is overwhelmingly Catholic, but evangelicals are growing in number and pre-election polls showed them abandoning Rousseff in significant numbers as the vote grew closer.

Rousseff met with church leaders last week and affirmed her support for existing laws, but she may not have been able to overcome Internet videos showing previous statements in which she appeared to support the decriminalization of abortion.

Green Party candidate Silva, herself an evangelical, appeared to be the main beneficiary of the last-minute shift.

A former environment minister who quit Lula's government in 2008 after a dispute over development plans in the Amazon, Silva had previously said she would not make an endorsement in a runoff -- though her new position as a potential kingmaker could cause her to change her mind.