Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff Wins Presidential Re-Election, Faces Mounting Problems

Esquerda. That’s “left” in Portuguese, and that’s where the 200 million-man nation of Brazil is headed for the next four years after Sunday’s presidential election. With the narrow victory of incumbent President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (PT), the world’s fourth-largest democracy and seventh-largest economy will further descend into the ever-worsening throes of economic central planning, government corruption, and political polarization.

Rousseff, who when first elected in 2010 won by a 12-point margin, narrowly slipped past her Social Democrat challenger, Aécio Neves, by fewer than 3.3 percentage points on Sunday. This election was the country’s closest since returning to democracy in 1985 after twenty years of military dictatorship.

In the months and weeks prior to this weekend, some pundits seriously believed Neves could win, given his pro-business platform, and more importantly, given Brazil’s faltering economy and rising dissatisfaction with Rousseff. Neves performed well in a televised debate and racked up the endorsements of important political figures and even soccer star and national darling Neymar. Ultimately, The Economist reports that Rousseff’s “relentless boasting” and the PT’s attacks against Neves, making out his criticisms of Rousseff as sexist and thereby shaving off his female support from 52% to 45%, contributed to his loss.

But, truly, Neves lost and Rousseff won simply because Brazil’s middle class was not large enough to elect as president a pro-business candidate–yet, we can only hope.

The generally richer south of Brazil went for Neves, while the poor north and northeast secured Rousseff’s victory. Most articles on the election agree that Rousseff has all but lost support among the middle class in cities like Sao Paolo.

A former Marxist guerrilla who fought against the Brazilian dictatorship until 1985, Rousseff is now a savvy politician. She is without a doubt still a leftist and, at heart, probably still a socialist, but she plays politics first and foremost: “From now on in Brazil we will have a debate of ideas, clash of positions that may produce areas of consensus capable of moving our society along the paths of change that we so badly need. My first words are a call for peace and unity.” She promised to continue social welfare and benefits while simultaneously grow the economy. Meanwhile, Rousseff faces coalition-building in a legislature with over twenty political parties, which according to some reports now has a center-right majority after PT and its major ally lost seats this election.

Brazilian financial markets tumbled today and the Brazilian Real, the country’s currency, dropped to its lowest levels since 2005. Bloomberg reports that while unemployment remains low (due to labor force dropouts), the Brazilian economy has experienced its slowest growth in more than two decades; the real has dropped 33% since Rousseff took office; and inflation has ranged from 4.5% to 6.75% during his presidency. The year before Rousseff took office Brazil’s GDP was growing at 7.5%, but this year it’s slated to not even reach 1% growth.

I wonder if the Brazilians who voted for Rousseff believe they are moving in the right direction.