Rousseff Has Worst Voting for PT in 12 years; SP Pushes Neves to Second Round

FOLHA

10/06/2014 - 10h27

FROM SÃO PAULO

The PSDB candidate for president, Aécio Neves, surprisingly took second place in the race to the presidency with 33.62% of the valid votes.

With 99.34% of the ballot calculated, Dilma Rousseff, the PT candidate for reelection, came in first with 41.55% of the valid votes, the worst performance for the PT in 12 years.

Marina Silva (PSB), who lost speed in the final stretch, came in third with 21.29% of the votes.
Aécio's turnaround in the final stretch of the election has a strong influence on the largest constituency in the country.

In São Paulo, with nearly 32 million voters (22.4% of the 142.8 million voters), senator Aécio Neves won over more than 10 million votes, around 44.25% of those who went to polling stations.

	Dilma Rousseff shows photographers the ticket which is proof of having voted in the first round election in Porto Alegre

Considered out of the game after the death of Eduardo Campos, the PSDB candidate rose from the ashes and secured at the last minute the logic of Brazilian politics since 1994, with a PT-PSDB head-to-head, highlights Folha columnist Eliane Cantanhêde.

President Dilma had a similar performance to Marina Silva in the country's largest state. The PT candidate had 5.9 million votes against the PSB's 5.7 million votes.

In 2010, when Dilma ran for president against former governor of São Paulo José Serra, elected today as senator with more than 11 million votes with 99.9% of the ballot calculated, she took 46.9% of the votes.

In Minas Gerais, the second largest Electoral College and home state of candidates Aécio Neves and Dilma Rousseff, the PT candidate did better. With 99.99% of the ballot calculated in the state, Dilma had 4.8 million votes, compared to 4.4 million votes for the PSDB candidate.

In the state race, Marina Silva won in Acre (Dilma came in second and Aécio in third) and in Pernambuco (where it was a close race with Dilma, leaving Aécio with a miserable 5.9%). The rest of the states in the northeast of the country went to Dilma.

	Douglas Magno/AFP
	Presidential candidate for the PSDB Aecio Neves is seen after casting his vote at a polling station in Belo Horizonte

In the consolidation of the country, this is the worst performance since 2002, when former president Lula was in the race. That year, Lula had 45.4% of the votes against Serra. Four years later, Lula had 48.6% in his dispute with Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB).

For the director general of Datafolha, Mauro Paulino, the partial results of the elections are aligned with Datafolha's latest study.

"Aécio [PSDB] is stronger to face Dilma [PT] in the second round. We did a study and found that his curve of growth is larger than Marina's [PSB], because it has fewer voters that would not vote for him at all. But let's wait for the outcome at the polls," says Paulino.

Translated by JILL LANGLOIS

Read the article in the original language