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C O N F I D E N T I A L BRASILIA 000049 
 
SIPDIS 
AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PASS TO AMCONSUL RECIFE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/02/13 
TAGS: PGOV BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: DILMA ROUSSEFF COMES UP 
FAST BEHIND JOSE SERRA 
 
REF: RIO DE JANEIRO 32 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Lisa Kubiske, Deputy Chief of Mission, State, Embassy 
Brasilia; REASON: 1.4(B), (D) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  Late January polling indicates that likely 
Workers' Party (PT) presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff, 
President Lula's chosen successor, has closed much of the gap with 
front-running opposition Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) 
candidate Jose Serra, and now trails by less than ten points in a 
two-way race for October's election.  The narrowing of the race was 
widely expected; the campaign now enters a zone where predictions 
are more difficult, as both Rousseff and Serra struggle to overcome 
public perceptions that have limited their respective voter 
preference ratings.   Some observers see the latest polls as giving 
her an advantage, while others attribute the surge to hard 
campaigning by President Lula and suggest that his star power will 
not be sufficient to maintain the momentum once the intense glare 
of campaign TV reveals weaknesses in Rousseff's candidacy. 
Rousseff's rise has increased pressure on Serra to announce his 
candidacy and on Minas Gerais Governor Aecio Neves to accept a slot 
as Serra's VP running mate.  Meanwhile, PT and its primary 
coalition partner the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) 
continue to argue about which party gets to run for which state and 
congressional races, excluding and alienating smaller coalition 
parties to the extent that PSDB may be able to recruit new allies 
from within coalition ranks.  End summary. 
 
 
 
State of Play: An Expected Rise, A Long Way to Go 
 
 
 
¶2.  (C) Two late January national polls - Vox Populi and CNT - 
yielded very similar results, indicating a slight decline in 
preference for Serra and a significant rise for Rousseff.  The Vox 
Populi poll shows Serra beating Rousseff 34 to 27 percent with 
Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) candidate Ciro Gomes included in 
the race, and 38 to 29 percent without him.    In both categories, 
this represented a nearly 15-point net gain for Rousseff from 
December.   CNT shows that Serra leading Rousseff by a slim 33 to 
28 percent in a race with Gomes included, and a much wider 41 to 29 
percent lead without him.   In both polls Gomes slipped from the 
previous month's poll, falling from 17 to 11 percent, while Green 
Party (PV) candidate Marina Silva maintains ratings in the high 
single digits.  Gomes is pulling slightly more votes from Serra 
than from Rousseff, while Silva's vote comes entirely at Rousseff's 
expense. 
 
 
 
¶3.  (C) These outcomes were not unexpected.  As Sen. Sergio 
Zambiasi (Brazilian Labor Party (PTB)-Rio Grande do Sul) joked to 
poloff on February 2 about the polls, "Maybe the only surprise is 
that (Rousseff's rise) happened exactly when everybody thought." 
Lula's aggressive presentation of Rousseff as the centerpiece of 
domestic legislation (including pre-salt oil) and international 
negotiations (Copenhagen) has managed to boost her name 
recognition, in the process bringing home much of PT's natural 
electoral base.  PT contacts are encouraged and confident but they 
also recognize that Rousseff's rise is only an early step in the 
process.  Candido Vaccarezza (PT-Sao Paulo), leader of the 
governing coalition in the Chamber of Deputies, acknowledged to 
poloff that, due to Lula's strong advocacy, most of the low-hanging 
electoral fruit has already been picked for Rousseff.  The 
challenge, he said, will be to get her to 40 percent - which he 
acknowledged would take some work.  (Vaccarezza strongly supports 
Ciro Gomes as a third-party candidate in order to lower the 
threshold for Rousseff.) 
 
 
 
Rousseff: The Start of Something Big or the Best She'll Get? 
 
 
 
¶4.  (C) Dilma Rousseff's rise in the polls creates a positive 
narrative for her heading into PT's national congress, to be held 
 
 
in late February, where she is widely expected to announce her 
candidacy officially.  Third-party observers offered divided 
opinion about how much higher Rousseff can rise from here.  Two 
competing Brasilia-based analysts told us in the past week that the 
race now tips toward Rousseff, because the economy will continue to 
be strong and because at this point, she only needs the support of 
a small fraction of the 80 percent of the electorate who approve 
Lula's performance.   Humberto Saccomandi, International News 
Editor of Valor Economico and political analyst Rafael Cortez of 
Tendencia Consultoria told Consulate General Sao Paulo much the 
same.  Most of these analysts added, however, that Rousseff repels 
many with her uncharismatic performance on television and she still 
has to prove she can hold her own in debates and public 
appearances. 
 
 
 
¶5.  (C) Rousseff's harshest critics most often emphasize that 
television and public speaking will kill her candidacy.  Journalist 
William Waack described to CG Sao Paulo a recent business forum in 
which Serra, Rousseff, Neves and Gomes all participated.  According 
to Waack, Gomes was the strongest overall, Neves the most 
charismatic, Serra detached but clearly competent, and Rousseff the 
least coherent.   Other critics take a more subtle tack, arguing 
somewhat counterintuitively that Brazil's desire for continuity 
after years of progress and prosperity actually benefits Serra, 
because he is seen by many as more likely to follow the economic 
path laid out by Cardoso and followed by Lula.  Helio Gurovitz, 
News Director at Epoca magazine, described Brazil as similar to 
Chile, arguing that the social base of the country has developed to 
the extent that it would prefer to alternate parties in power in 
order to retain continuity, rather than keep one party in power 
long-term, thereby facilitating a hard shift to that party's side 
of the political spectrum.   Others just see her as the wrong 
candidate at the wrong time.  The Chiefs of Staff for Senators 
Osmar Dias (Democratic Labor Party (PDT)-Parana) and Alvaro Dias 
(PSDB-Parana) - who are brothers representing the same state but 
opposite sides of the political fence - met poloff together on 
February 5 and were united on one point:  Rousseff will suffer 
among reachable voters because she is clearly not Lula. 
 
 
 
¶6. (C) If Rousseff's personal lack of charisma were not enough of a 
worry, PT also is having problems keeping PMDB, its primary 
coalition partner and the largest party in Brazil, happy in the 
state-level races, which may have adverse effects on Rousseff's 
campaign.  PMDB has already committed itself to support Serra in 
Sao Paulo, the country's largest block of votes by far.  PT-PMDB 
infighting also continues over which candidates to support in many 
other gubernatorial and legislative races, without signs of 
resolution in virtually every major state, including Minas Gerais, 
Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul. 
PT may have little choice other than to resolve most of these 
impasses by supporting PMDB candidates, leaving little space to 
support aspirants from smaller coalition parties.  Sen. Zambiasi, 
whose PTB is one of those smaller parties, confirmed to poloff that 
his party, among others, has been offered very little from PT to 
stick with Rousseff in the 2010 campaign.  While declaring himself 
a Lula supporter (he spoke diplomatically of Rousseff, who is from 
his home state), Zambiasi more-or-less confirmed local rumors that 
PTB is strongly leaning toward backing Serra, bringing the party's 
advertising time with them.  He added that no decision would be 
made during the upcoming legislative session, adding that PTB is in 
no hurry to be "the first to jump off the roof." 
 
 
 
Pressure Grows for Serra and Neves to Declare 
 
 
 
¶7. (C) Serra meantime has maintained a relatively low national 
profile while PSDB surrogates such as ex-President Fernando 
Henrique Cardoso and Senator Sergio Guerra draw headlines for 
sniping with President Lula and the government.  Rousseff's rise 
 
 
has set off another round of speculation that Serra may decide to 
withdraw from the presidential race and run again for Governor of 
Sao Paulo.  Presidential International Relations Advisor Marco 
Aurelio Garcia suggested as much in a February 8 meeting with the 
Ambassador, as has virtually every PT elected official in meetings 
with embassy officers over the past few months.  While PT has an 
interest in pushing this line, it also comes from third-party 
sources and from Sao Paulo, including Valor Economico's Saccomandi. 
Others, including senior Sao Paulo-based PSDB contacts such as 
Mayor Kassab's Chief of Staff Clovis Carvalho and PSDB State Party 
President and Federal Deputy Antonio Carlos Mendes Thame, have told 
CG Sao Paulo officers that Serra will run.  At this point, Serra is 
still not expected to announce his candidacy until March. 
 
 
 
¶8. (C) Media speculation continues on the possibility of Minas 
Gerais Governor Aecio Neves joining the PSDB ticket as VP.  Rio de 
Janeiro's O Globo reported recently that Neves is finding the 
pressure unhelpful in political management of his own state, where 
Neves is trying to shore up other state PSDB candidates, and where 
he continues to avow that he plans to run for Senate.  Two PSDB 
staff sources in the Federal Senate also told poloff that 
Rousseff's rise is ratcheting up the pressure on Governor Aecio 
Neves to accept a slot as Serra's vice - a position Neves has 
previously indicated he does not want (reftel).  Both see an Aecio 
vice-presidential nomination as an opportunity to regain momentum 
in the race, a vote-winner in Minas and surrounding states, and as 
the best possible vice presidential option in the quest to attract 
smaller parties from the governing coalition to PSDB's side. 
Interestingly, neither PSDB source considered himself a Neves fan. 
Both considered him to be more image than substance, easy for PT to 
attack for his lifestyle, and a poor potential substitute for Serra 
at the front of a presidential ticket.  Former Cardoso Finance 
Minister and PSDB senior figure Pedro Malan told Rio Principal 
Officer February 5 that, while he believes Neves as VP candidate 
would strongly boost the PSDB's prospects for victory, it is now 
unclear to Malan whether Neves will ultimately take the decision to 
join Serra's ticket.  "The calculus he has to make in terms of 
maintaining his influence and prestige in Minas Gerais over the 
long term and this upcoming election is more complex than some 
think," Malan said.  As for Neves himself, it appears he hasn't 
entirely shut out the VP option: he told Rio Principal Officer on 
February 10 that, "Sometimes you have to give time to time-let's 
wait and see how things develop." 
 
 
 
Comment:  The Race Is About to Begin 
 
 
 
¶9.  (C) After months revving their engines, Brazil's two most 
likely presidential contenders are poised at the starting line, 
both standing at poll positions most analysts anticipated for them 
at this point.  Rousseff's expected official announcement, planned 
for shortly after Carnaval (approximately February 20), will lead 
to yet another round of speculation on Serra's plans until the 
moment when Serra finally announces (or doesn't) in March, marking 
the de-facto start of the campaign.  The race from that point 
forward becomes very difficult to predict, both because of 
measurable "x factors" such as the candidacies of Ciro Gomes and 
Marina Silva, and because of variables almost impossible to predict 
- such as the impact of Serra's as-of-yet-undefined campaign 
strategy or whether the PT's difficulties in holding its coalition 
together in state and congressional races will have any real effect 
on voter choices in October's presidential contest.  At this point, 
assuming that Serra runs, Brazil's presidential race is the 
definition of a toss-up.  End comment. 
 
 
 
¶10.  (U) This cable was coordinated with Consulates General Sao 
Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. 
SHANNON