Eleicoes 2014: uma analise da disputa presidencial a partir dos EUA - Eurasia Group

 Concordo amplamente com a análise, embora fatores objetivos talvez possam contar menos, nesta etapa final, do que certas impressões subjetivas que os eleitores possam ter com respeito aos dois candidatos. E muito vai se desenvolver nos dois ou três debates que os colocarão face a face, com aquilo que aparece rapidamente aos espectadores: essa ou esse candidato é sincero, dá para acreditar nele ou nela?
    Acho que é isso que vai determinar, no momento decisivo, o voto dos indecisos, que é o que vai fazer a balança pender para um dos lados, nessa contagem muito próxima como de fato indicado no artigo.
    Meus parabéns aos autores.
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Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Rousseff and Neves are headed for a close finish
Eurasia Group, 13 October 2014 03:15 PM EDT

• A Sensus poll released over the weekend shows Rousseff down 17 points against Aecio, but that number should be taken with a huge grain of salt given more reputable polls put Aecio's lead in the low single digits.

• But Rousseff is facing stronger than anticipated headwinds given a Petrobras scandal that continues to receive ample media coverage and, although less important, endorsements that Aecio received over the weekend.

• We still consider Rousseff likely to win and expect her campaign to make up some ground by the end of the week, but these headwinds put a downward bias on our 60% assessment and suggest the 26 October vote will be extremely close.

Sensus released its first national public opinion poll over the weekend, but its survey should be taken with a huge grain of salt. According to the polling company, opposition candidate Aecio Neves is leading Rousseff by a margin of 17 points with 52.4% of the vote against 36.7% support for Rousseff. The poll, however, stands in sharp contrast with IBOPE and Datafolha, both of which are traditionally more reliable and show Rosseff down by only 2 points (51% vs. 49%). While Sensus was released over the weekend, it is important to note that its poll was conducted in roughly the same time period as IBOPE and Datafolha--Sensus's field was from 7-10 October while IBOPE's and Datafolha's was from 7-9 October. There is much debate over whether IBOPE and Datafolha show a "PT-bias" given how they weight their results, but if there is one, it is unlikely to be more than a couple percentage points. In addition, it is also important to flag that while in the last three elections both polls have overstated the PT candidate's support by roughly 4 points in the first round vote, there has been no discrepancy in the second round vote. As a result, one should probably assume that Aecio's lead stands at roughly 2-6 points, not in the double digit range.

Rousseff's campaign is on the defensive

Rousseff's campaign, however, is fighting stronger headwinds than we anticipated, and as such, is clearly on the defensive. As we highlighted last week, Aecio's strong start in the second round campaign was probably driven by two factors. First, by very favorable media coverage following his surprising performance in the first round on 6 October that occupied most headlines during a "lull" in the campaign which ran from the day of the election to when the TV campaigning re-started on 9 October. Second, by the fact he got a "free pass" in the first round of the election with the PT campaign focused exclusively on going negative against Marina Silva.

But the fact the Petrobras scandal took a new and negative twist right when the TV campaign re-started has clearly put Rousseff's campaign on the defensive. While the allegations which were levied by Petrobras's ex-director Paulo Roberto da Costa don't reveal anything "new", the fact they were levied through hours of audio tape has made a difference. The news media has been giving ample coverage to the tapes, and replaying segments of it on the nightly news in recent days detailing da Costa's account of how a supposed corruption racquet in Petrobras benefitted the PT and its allies in congress. Looking forward, it won't come as a surprise if additional segments of Roberto da Costa's deposition get leaked to the press by dribs and drabs to keep the story alive. Add the endorsements that Aecio Neves received from third party candidate Marina Silva, and equally if not more important, from Eduardo Campos's family in the state of Pernambuco, it is safe to say the news flow has been very negative to the PT's campaign. We remain of the view that third party candidate endorsements don't have much of an impact on voting behavior, and that remains the case for Marina Silva's endorsements. But from a news flow perspective, it contributes to what was already a positive momentum for Aecio amidst a negative news flow for Rousseff.

The end result has been a defensive posture of Rousseff's campaign. Rather than attack Aecio and the PSDB for all the vulnerabilities which have proven effective in the last three elections (party of the elite, risk to the economic gains accrued under PT etc.), Rousseff's campaign focused a bit more on shoring up her attributes on fighting corruption and on her positive agenda. The intent was probably to insulate a very negative news flow and prevent a downward spiral in her negative attributes. The TV ads have been relatively light on attacks against Aecio. In the campaigning, Rousseff also focused her time in the Northeast-her bastion of support.

All of the above makes this second round much more competitive and difficult to call than we anticipated, and as a result, we now view Rousseff as only a slight favorite to win. We already lowered the probability of her winning last week from 70% to 60%, and we would even put a downward bias to our existing probability assessment given the trend described above.

What are we looking for this week?

But it would still be early, in our view, to conclude Aecio is now favored to win. With Rousseff on the defensive late last week, her campaign has yet to fully explore the liabilities Aecio Neves and the PSDB, as they have done successfully in the last three elections. That means the PT will most likely pivot to a more aggressive stance this week, and Rousseff will probably start that posture in tomorrow night's first presidential debate. In other words, this will be the week in which Aecio's image and electoral vulnerabilities will be stress tested in a manner they haven't yet been. The fact such a "stress-testing" of Aecio's vulnerabilities has begun later in the second round than anticipated certainly makes this election harder to call.

As a result, we will be looking at two signposts. The first is how Rousseff performs in this week's debates. While Aecio is seen as a better debater, in a one-on-one format the president has proven to hold her ground reasonably well (that was the case last election). Even if she doesn't come across as the clear winner, she needs to effectively jumpstart a more negative swing to her campaign this week in tomorrow night's debate. While the appraisal of who "won" will matter, the PT campaign will look to Tuesday's debate as a means to help jumpstart a more offensive swing. Alternatively, if Aecio comes across much better than Rousseff, and as seen as the clear winner, it will be all the harder for Rousseff to gain momentum this week.

Second, we will be looking at the polls by the end of this week. Aecio most likely has kept the average lead he held by the end of last week. So we expect the Vox Populi, IBOPE, and Datafolha polls by mid-week to show him still ahead-most likely within the 2-6 point range. But if polls by the end of this week show Rousseff still down by a similar average deficit, it could be the first strong indicator that the PSDB's liabilities are not coming out as we expected-be it because of tactical flows in the campaign or because the desire for change in segments of the middle class are more robust than we appreciated. Independently, we view this week as critical to our assessment over who in fact is likely to win on 26 October.

Joao Augusto de Castro Neves, PhD
Director, Latin America

Christopher Garman
Deputy Head of Research

Cameron T. Combs
Researcher, Brazil