BRAZIL’S PRESIDENTIAL race will finally kick into top gear tonight with the first televised debate between the leading candidates, less than two months before the world’s fourth largest democracy goes to the polls. So far the race has been a lacklustre affair with the public largely unmoved by a field short on charisma battling to replace the wildly popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula. For the first time since the return of democracy in 1989, he is not on the ballot.
A strong economy and the fact that the two main contenders promise to keep in place decade-old fiscal and financial reforms have robbed the race of the tension that used to accompany presidential contests, when uncertainty over the outcome would roil financial markets.
Mr Lula’s own drive to the presidency in 2002 spooked Brazil’s creditors who took fright at the idea of a former union firebrand becoming president.
The country needed a $30 billion (€23 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund, a record at the time, to prop up its plummeting currency.
But now, markets are unmoved by the race, mainly because Mr Lula ran an economically orthodox administration. “At the time of Lula’s victory there was great tension between politics and the economy which does not exist now. Markets were worried then over how the left would behave in power. This component has disappeared from this year’s race,” says Rafael Cortez, a political analyst at Tendências, a São Paulo consultancy.
Such has been Mr Lula’s success that he has been able to catapult his cabinet chief of staff to the front of the race, despite initial scepticism within his own Workers’ Party due to the fact that less than a year ago a majority of Brazilians had little idea who she was.
As Mr Lula’s enforcer, Dilma Rousseff has a reputation as a tough administrator able to push big projects through Brazil’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. She is running on the government’s record of strong economic growth and promises to defend Mr Lula’s social programmes which have helped ease poverty in one of the world’s most unequal societies.
But her chances of winning are dependent on Mr Lula’s endorsement. Little known by the wider public until recently, the 62-year-old economist has a reputation as “hard” and “bossy” and, never having run for public office before, she is a novice on the campaign trail.
All polls indicate Ms Rousseff will emerge from voting on October 3rd to face the Social Democrat José Serra in a run-off on October 31st, with the environmentalist Marina Silva running a distant third.
Like his main rival, the 68-year-old Mr Serra is a left-leaning economist and also a successful former minister, remembered for implementing Brazil’s highly successful anti-Aids programme. But unlike Ms Rousseff, he is a seasoned campaigner. He was elected mayor of Brazil’s biggest city, governor of its most populous state, and lost to Mr Lula in the 2002 race.
So far he has tried to avoid any hint he is running against Mr Lula’s economic record or social programmes and instead seeks to highlight continuing high levels of violence and the dire state of the public health service, about which Brazilians remain deeply unhappy. “Brazil can do better” is his campaign slogan.
But despite his experience on the stump, Mr Serra also battles an image problem. Political cartoonists portray him as a vampire because of his pallid appearance, bloodless style of delivering speeches and his reputation as a control freak.
With three months still to go to a potential deciding round, much can still happen in the race. Both sides are regularly accusing the other of dirty tricks. But so far voters have yet to warm to any candidate.
“This is perhaps the clearest signal that our democracy is maturing,” says André Pereira César, a political analyst in Brasília. “Voters no longer need charismatic characters anymore. Lula could be the last of the messianic leaders we turned to to ‘save the country’. Now voters want substantive projects and proposals, not a personality.”
The Candidates: Brazil Presidential Election
DILMA ROUSSEFF:39% in latest opinion poll
The daughter of a wealthy Bulgarian immigrant she joined one of the guerrilla movements that fought Brazil’s military dictatorship. She was captured and tortured.
On release, studied economics and moved into public administration. Though she only joined the Workers’ Party in 2000, Lula named her energy minister in his first government. In 2005 he promoted her to cabinet chief-of-staff after her predecessor fell in a corruption scandal.
JOSÉ SERRA:34% in latest opinion poll
Born to modest Italian immigrants in São Paulo. He was the first of his family to go to university. There he rose to become a leftist student leader.
Forced into exile after the 1964 coup, he studied economics in Chile and the US.
Founder member of the Social Democrats, he held a string of elected offices and was a successful minister in the government of president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
He lost the 2002 presidential election to Lula.
MARINA SILVA:7% in latest opinion poll
Daughter of poor Amazonian rubber tappers Marina only learned to read at 16 and worked as a maid before getting into university where she became politically active as a left-wing environmentalist.
Elected senator in 1994 she served as Lula's environment minister between 2003 and 2008. She resigned disillusioned at resistance from other ministers to her sustainable growth policies. She is running as the Green candidate. TOM HENNIGAN