http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/b/brazil/brazil-presidential-election-2006.html
http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/b/brazil/brazil-presidential-election-2010.html
http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/b/brazil/brazil-presidential-election-2010.html
Note: The maps above provide some representation of voting by region in Brazil. However, Brazilian presidential elections are based on the overall votes for the entire country. There is no American-like Electoral College system.
As cited in The Economist on Oct 7, 2010, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) candidate Dilma Rousseff looked deflated and was disappointed after not reaching the absolute majority she needed to win the presidency of Brazil in the first round on Oct. 3, 2010. The Economist reported that Rousseff claimed 46.9 per cent of the vote, which was “three to four percentage points” less than predicted by many polls. http://www.economist.com/node/17204613?story_id+17204613
In the next round of the election Dilma Rousseff faces a run-off against José Serra, of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) and runner up in the first-round election. Rousseff and Serra spar primarily for the votes won by various third-party candidates, particularly those cast for Marina Silva of the Green Party. The Economist recognized Silva as the most successful candidate from a third party since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, taking 19.3 per cent of the vote. http://www.economist.com/node/17204613?story_id+17204613
The reasons for Marina Silva’s success are numerous, but perhaps most significant are her environmental stance and her religiosity. She is an evangelical Christian, which likely gained her votes from Brazil’s growing population of Protestants. Additionally, Silva ’s background is closer to that of President Lula than those of either Serra or Rousseff; she grew up impoverished, the daughter of rubber-tappers from the Amazonian state of Acre. She gained a university degree, moreover, by working to support herself, far surpassing Lula in educational attainment. As a politician, she was first elected to the Senate in 1994, representing her home state of Acre. In 2003 she was nominated President Lula’s Minster of the Environment.
Marina Silva’s involvement in the 2010 Brazilian presidential election is also notable because both she and Dilma Rousseff fomerly served as ministers in President Lula’s cabinet. Rousseff was the Brazilian equivalent of Chief of Staff from 2005 until March of 2010, when she quit to run for the presidency. Marina Silva was Minister of the Environment until 2008, when she resigned, frustrated that the Lula government was pursuing pro-business policies at the expense of the environment. The last straw was President Lula’s decision to appoint Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Minister of Planning, to develop an Amazonian development strategy, The Plan for a Sustainable Amazon, a position that she wanted for herself.
Marina Silva’s decisions to leave the Lula government, and later to renounce membership in the PT, and run for president on the Green Party ticket demonstrate her lack of support for the Lula government’s environmental policy. It might have been expected that Silva would have supported Dilma Rousseff in the second round of the presidential election. But, as Rousseff has run on a platform of continuing Lula policies, Silva declined to back either her or her rival in the second round. Such a lack of public support is especially injurious to the Rousseff campaign, overtly demonstrating Silva’s discontent with both Rousseff and the Partido dos Trabalhadores.
The states won by Rousseff in the first election round are almost exactly the same as the ones Lula carried in 2006 (see maps below). Lula’s crucial voting bloc in the 2006 victory consisted of the impoverished northeastern and northern, or Amazonian, states (although the states of Amazonia are sparsely populated). Key to his successful courtship of this population was the expansion of the conditional cash transfer program, Bolsa Família. Impoverished families of the northeast and north were, per capita, the largest beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família program. Lula also enjoys “favorite son” pull in the northeast; his natal state was Pernambuco (he moved to São Paulo as an adolescent.) But Dilma Rousseff also carried those same states even though she is not of northeastern heritage, but rather hails originally from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais is of Bulgarian ancestry. Evidently northeastern voters identified her with the economic successes of the Lula administration and the Bolsa Família.
It also is likely, however, that Dilma Rousseff lost many voters in the northeast and north of the country who were persons who had voted for Lula and benefitted from the Bolsa Família. Some likely reasons for this are Marina Silva’s religious affiliation and also her background (being of mixed race and growing up the daughter of rubber-tappers in the Amazon).
Another key constituency of Marina Silva’s was the educated middle class. This is the group of voters in Brazil most likely to have been drawn to her pro-environment stance. This is most evidenced by the fact that the Distrito Federal was the one electoral district Marina Silva won outright, and may be Brazil’s electoral district most dominated by the educated middle class. Another state in which Marina Silva was quite successful was Rio de Janeiro, a state that likely has voters who voted for her for pro-environment stance, those who identify with Marina Silva’s rise from poverty, and those who identify with her Protestantism.
In the next round of the election Dilma Rousseff faces a run-off against José Serra, of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) and runner up in the first-round election. Rousseff and Serra spar primarily for the votes won by various third-party candidates, particularly those cast for Marina Silva of the Green Party. The Economist recognized Silva as the most successful candidate from a third party since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, taking 19.3 per cent of the vote. http://www.economist.com/node/17204613?story_id+17204613
The reasons for Marina Silva’s success are numerous, but perhaps most significant are her environmental stance and her religiosity. She is an evangelical Christian, which likely gained her votes from Brazil’s growing population of Protestants. Additionally, Silva ’s background is closer to that of President Lula than those of either Serra or Rousseff; she grew up impoverished, the daughter of rubber-tappers from the Amazonian state of Acre. She gained a university degree, moreover, by working to support herself, far surpassing Lula in educational attainment. As a politician, she was first elected to the Senate in 1994, representing her home state of Acre. In 2003 she was nominated President Lula’s Minster of the Environment.
Marina Silva’s involvement in the 2010 Brazilian presidential election is also notable because both she and Dilma Rousseff fomerly served as ministers in President Lula’s cabinet. Rousseff was the Brazilian equivalent of Chief of Staff from 2005 until March of 2010, when she quit to run for the presidency. Marina Silva was Minister of the Environment until 2008, when she resigned, frustrated that the Lula government was pursuing pro-business policies at the expense of the environment. The last straw was President Lula’s decision to appoint Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Minister of Planning, to develop an Amazonian development strategy, The Plan for a Sustainable Amazon, a position that she wanted for herself.
Marina Silva’s decisions to leave the Lula government, and later to renounce membership in the PT, and run for president on the Green Party ticket demonstrate her lack of support for the Lula government’s environmental policy. It might have been expected that Silva would have supported Dilma Rousseff in the second round of the presidential election. But, as Rousseff has run on a platform of continuing Lula policies, Silva declined to back either her or her rival in the second round. Such a lack of public support is especially injurious to the Rousseff campaign, overtly demonstrating Silva’s discontent with both Rousseff and the Partido dos Trabalhadores.
The states won by Rousseff in the first election round are almost exactly the same as the ones Lula carried in 2006 (see maps below). Lula’s crucial voting bloc in the 2006 victory consisted of the impoverished northeastern and northern, or Amazonian, states (although the states of Amazonia are sparsely populated). Key to his successful courtship of this population was the expansion of the conditional cash transfer program, Bolsa Família. Impoverished families of the northeast and north were, per capita, the largest beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família program. Lula also enjoys “favorite son” pull in the northeast; his natal state was Pernambuco (he moved to São Paulo as an adolescent.) But Dilma Rousseff also carried those same states even though she is not of northeastern heritage, but rather hails originally from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais is of Bulgarian ancestry. Evidently northeastern voters identified her with the economic successes of the Lula administration and the Bolsa Família.
It also is likely, however, that Dilma Rousseff lost many voters in the northeast and north of the country who were persons who had voted for Lula and benefitted from the Bolsa Família. Some likely reasons for this are Marina Silva’s religious affiliation and also her background (being of mixed race and growing up the daughter of rubber-tappers in the Amazon).
Another key constituency of Marina Silva’s was the educated middle class. This is the group of voters in Brazil most likely to have been drawn to her pro-environment stance. This is most evidenced by the fact that the Distrito Federal was the one electoral district Marina Silva won outright, and may be Brazil’s electoral district most dominated by the educated middle class. Another state in which Marina Silva was quite successful was Rio de Janeiro, a state that likely has voters who voted for her for pro-environment stance, those who identify with Marina Silva’s rise from poverty, and those who identify with her Protestantism.
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