Brazil Election - 5 October 2014

[Paleobrazilian]

According to PSDB leaders the 1st rally of the runoff will be realized in Pernambuco, and there's a chance Marina will endorse Aecio there.

[Paleobrazilian]

PSDB has elected 54 Congressmen, 8 more than was believed yesterday, 10 more than currently. 14 of the 70 Congressmen São Paulo elected are from the PSDB - Alckmin's coattails, of course. That is huge for the PSDB. No matter what happens in the runoff, they'll be stronger for the next 4 years.

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The PT has likely shrunk to 70 Congressmen, a huge 18 member loss. São Paulo put a huge drag on the PT here.

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PMDB also shrinks, to 66 Congressmen, from 73.

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Another loser in Congress is Gilberto Kassab and his PSD. Not only he failed miserably on his Senate bid, his party lost 7 seats in Congress, and will now have 38 Congressmen.

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Thanks to Marina Silva the PSB gains 9 seats and will now have 34 seats in the Chamber.

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The huge fragmentation of parties over the last few years makes the Chamber elected today a hugely split one. It'll be hard for both Dilma and Aecio to have a reliable majority here. Dilma has had tons of trouble working with the Congress during her term. FHC and Lula used to deal much better with the Congress.

[Paleobrazilian]

Daniel Coelho (PSDB-PE), widely considered a big rising star on the PSDB, has been elected to Congress. Wouldn't be surprised if he's elected Mayor of Recife in 2 years.

One thing I was just listening to on the TV is the possibility of sensitive info from the Petrobras scandal leaking during the next 3 weeks. The 1st whistleblower has already told tons of damaging info to the feds (still in secret what he told, but it's believed to be highly damaging) and now there's a 2nd whistleblower who's believed to have even more explosive info.

[Paleobrazilian]

The latest projection to the new Chamber of Deputies:

PT – 88 – 70 (-18 seats)
PMDB – 71 – 66 (-5 seats)
PSDB – 44 – 55 (+11 seats)
PP – 40 – 37 (-3 seats)
PSD – 45 – 37 (-8 seats)
PR – 32 – 34 (+2 seats)
PSB – 24 – 34 (+10 seats)
PTB – 18 – 26 (+8 seats)
DEM – 28 – 22 (-6 seats)
PRB – 10 – 20 (+10 seats)
PDT – 18 – 19 (+1 seat)
SD – 22 – 16 (-6 seats)
PSC – 12 – 12 (equal)
Pros – 20 – 11 (-9 seats)
PPS – 6 – 10 (+4 seats)
PCdoB – 15 – 9 (-6 seats)
PV – 8 – 8 (equal)
Psol – 3 – 5 (+2 seats)
PHS – 0 – 4 (+4 seats)
PEN – 1 – 3 (+2 seats)
PMN – 3 – 3 (equal)
PTN – 0 – 3 (+3 seats)
PRP – 2 – 2 (equal)
PTC – 0 – 2 (+2 seats)
PSDC – 0 – 2 (+2 seats)
PRTB – 0 – 1 (+1 seat)
PSL – 0 – 1 (+1 seat)
PTdoB – 3 – 1 (-2 seats)

[Paleobrazilian]

Vice Governor-Elect of São Paulo Marcio França (PSB-SP) has announced he believes his party will endorse Aecio.

Among the victims of tonight's election for the Chamber, I'd pencil the President of the PPS, Roberto Freire (PPS-SP), who was a fixture in Congress, Candido Vaccarezza (PT-SP), former leader of the PT in the Chamber, and Netinho de Paula (PCdoB-SP), a very well known musician who turned to politics.

Seminal politicians who were probably taken down for good after tonight are Paulo Souto (DEM-BA), Roberto Requião (PMDB-PR), Olivio Dutra (PT-RS), Eduardo Suplicy (PT-SP) and Cesar Maia (DEM-RJ). Age and/or the size of their defeats probably sign the end of their political careers.

Now I'll go to sleep

[Paleobrazilian]

In 20 minutes Bovespa is already gaining over 7.5%. The dollar rate is also dropping sharply to less than 2,40 reais. Any doubt about the market wants?

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Parties in the Chamber of Deputies (513)

The issue is that, besides a few parties (like the PT and PSDB - and even then), most Brazilian parties have absolutely no coherent ideology - they change appearances and 'ideologies' to fit in with the prevailing environment (parties like the PMDB, PP, PR, PRB etc are the best examples), while many individual politicians change parties as often as they change clothes. Trying to come up with some ideological descriptor for these parties is a waste of time and meaningless.

Exactly.

[Paleobrazilian]

IBOPE and Datafolha will be releasing the 1st runoff polls Thursday.

[Paleobrazilian]

Marina and Eduardo Campos' family will formally endorse Aecio this week according to Estadão.

It's widely believed Paulo Skaf will also endorse Aecio. That would be huge for Aecio.

[Paleobrazilian]

Two questions:

1. Why is PSDB so freaking strong in SP? (and PT so weak?)
2. While Aecio made a remarkable comeback, he just lost his home state of Minas, where he was suppoused to be a God. Would that make any effect or it doesn't matter?  

1. In São Paulo, the percentage of people living below the poverty line is much lower than in the rest of the country. Unlike Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, the large majority of the middle class from São Paulo work in the private sector. That's why they are more willing to support "small government". In Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, most of the middle class work in the public sector, and that's why, many of them used to vote for PT. But this year, Dilma didn't win Brasília and Rio de Janeiro too.
Despite having huge rejection in São Paulo, PT used to have safe 30% there. In this year, it didn't happen. São Paulo is the home of PT and PSDB.

2. Minas Gerais is a sample that represents Brazil as a whole. The north of the state is poor like the neighboring Bahia, the south of the state is rich like the neighboring São Paulo. Aécio won in the south of the state, but lost in the north

I'd say there's even more to explain São Paulo. The PT has proven to be an awful party for the inner areas of the State, areas that grew very quickly on the economy over the last 20 years. The PSDB clearly targeted voters from booming cities like Sorocaba, Jundiaí, Santos, São José dos Campos, Ribeirão Preto, etc, and it paid off handsomely.

Also, there's the feeling that, overall, São Paulo has always been better on the election day than it was 4 years ago. There's a general feeling that the economy and the infrastructure of São Paulo has continuously improved (at times at a faster rate than the rest of the country). As Alckmin pointed out during his campaign, when the PSDB took office in 1994 São Paulo had the GDP of Argentina, now it has the GDP of 2 Argentinas, at about 600 billion dollars.

Another reason why the PSDB is so strong here is the fact that the State was bankrupt when Mario Covas took office in 1994. There was widespread corruption and the state-owned companies were bleeding money. The state had no money to pay its public servants at a moment. Covas made huge changes on the size of the government and on it's way to handle things, and soon the State was booming again. This argument is very appealing to older voters who remember well how São Paulo was doing until 1994, and helps to explain why many in São Paulo are generally in favor of privatizations and a smaller size of the government.

Finally, there's the "non ducor duco" ("I'm not led, I lead") argument. São Paulo definitely tilts to the right when it comes to economic issues and they don't like the idea of a strong central government messing up with their lives.

All in, the PT has been scoring slowly on all the 4 points I listed before and that's why it's brand has become toxic in São Paulo. The PSDB also did a great job building party ID in São Paulo, many "paulistas" now identify themselves as PSDBists. One HUGELY relevant number from yesterday is that on both the Chamber and the State Assembly elections yesterday, the PSDB was BY FAR the party with most direct votes to the party. About 5% of the votes on both races were not given to a specific candidate, they went directly to the PSDB. The PT used to dominate this statistic and yesterday they had nearly 60% less direct votes than the PSDB. Yet another relevant stat is that Dilma failed to win some key cities on the Greater São Paulo area where the PT was born, like São Bernardo do Campo, Santo André, Diadema and Guarulhos. In some of those areas, Marina actually ran stronger than Dilma (in São Bernardo do Campo, Lula's hometown, Dilma finished THIRD).

If the PT can't get a clue here soon, they'll soon be left without the only relevant job they still have in São Paulo - Fernando Haddad's one, of course.

[Paleobrazilian]

Marina and Eduardo Campos' family will formally endorse Aecio this week according to Estadão.

It's widely believed Paulo Skaf will also endorse Aecio. That would be huge for Aecio.

Any news of what Marina will get out of this? Could she join his cabinet?

It's certainly possible, but "Marinistas" claim some agreements on some policies would be the most important - mostly embracing a green development strategy + a pledge for political reform and the extinction of reelection. Aecio Neves claim to be in favor of doing all this, so theoretically there's fertile terrain for an agreement.

The question of reelection is a curious one as every politician in Brazil is against it before being in favor of it or is in favor of it before being against it (clearly the case of Aecio, who has reelected Governor of Minas Gerais with a phenomenal performance). The PSDB created reelection back in 1996 to allow FHC to get 4 more years. Now they want Aecio to take this possibility away to get Alckmin to work for Aecio It seems to have worked, as Alckmin made a rousing speech for Aecio yesterday.

[Paleobrazilian]

The great map of the 1st round: light color shows the candidate won the city with less than 50% of the votes, dark color means more than 50% for the winner.

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In 1994, the ratio GDP per capita from São Paulo / GDP per capita from Brazil was 1.60. In 2011, this ratio was 1.51. Actually, São Paulo has lower GDP growth rates than the Brazilian average since mid 1970s.

Even before being pro-PSDB, São Paulo was anti-left. In 1989, Collor (from Alagoas) defeated Lula (from São Paulo) by 53-47 in the whole country and by 58-42 in São Paulo. Lula was supported by the PSDB candidate Mário Covas.

Then again, São Paulo's economy was always way bigger than the rest, so it's obvious the rest of the country had more room to grow than São Paulo, which had over 35% of the national GDP at a certain moment.

Runoff debates:

October 13th: SBT
October 14th: Bandeirantes
October 19th: Record
October 23rd: Globo

It's hard to know what will happen, but this could be the 1st time ever since 1989 when the debates will actually matter on the presidential race. Aécio got high remarks for his performance on last Thursday's debate and he'll need to keep up the momentum. Dilma is not a great debater so he can take advantage here.

TV ads should start again later this week. Both Dilma and Aécio will have exactly the same time on the TV this time out. Both sides will go full on with negative ads and watching political ads for the next 3 weeks will be extremely painful.

[Paleobrazilian]

Bovespa is having an excellent day today. According to rumors Aecio has offered Marina the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on his cabinet.

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The PPS has (unsurprisingly) endorsed Aecio

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TV campaign starts Thursday, 10 minutes for each candidate, twice a day.

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With a 0,57% rise in September, the inflation of the last 12 months has reached 6,75%, above the 6,5% threshold considered acceptable by the Central Bank.

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Rev. Everaldo has endorsed Aécio. No surprises.

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Eduardo Jorge and the PV are officially endorsing Aecio. It'll be hard for them to convince their voters to go with Aecio, but if they manage to do this, that would be cool.

[Paleobrazilian]

Luciana Genro and the PSOL are not endorsing anyone, but the party advises it's voters to vote nullify their votes or vote Dilma. Pretty obvious as Aecio goes for more economical liberalism.

Ana Amelia endorses Sartori in Rio Grande do Sul. Ana Amelia was already endorsing Aecio and Sartori, who's part of the anti-PT PMDB, is expected to follow suit.