MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil’s Dilma seems unbeatable 18 months ahead of the presidential election

The Brazilian president has an unprecedented support, and is well ahead of Marina Silva and Aecio Neves

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff leads comfortably vote intention according to two public opinion polls published by leading newspapers, which indicate that she would have an easy win in the first round of the 2014 presidential election.

The poll from the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion, Ibope, and published by O Estado de Sao Paulo shows that 35% spontaneously even before presenting the list of possible candidates, said they would support Rousseff in 2014, which is three times the sum of all other presidential hopefuls vote intention.

Likewise the 35% is far ahead of the percentages registered by Brazilian presidents since the return of democracy in 1985 and as now 18 months ahead of the presidential election. Furthermore Dilma has more people willing to vote her than those who discard such an option.

Regarding ‘stimulated’ vote-intention and when presented with the list of possible candidates, the percentage of support for Dilma jumps to 53 to 60%, depending on the different rivals.

In the poll published by Datafolha (from Sao Paulo), the president is 42 percentage points ahead of former Environment minister Marina Silva. This opinion poll also confirms that Dilma would be elected in the first round with an ample difference over Silva who collects 16% vote intention.

However it must be pointed out that so far none of the two ladies have officially established their intention to run for the presidential office.

Ms Silva a former member of the ruling Workers Party and who later affiliated to the Green Party to dispute the presidency in 2010 was third in that election with 20 million votes (19.3% of ballots) and is now working to form a new political party.

In the Datafolha poll, Senator Aecio Neves from the main opposition party, PSDB (party of the Brazilian social democracy) was third with 10% vote intention and Pernambuco governor Eduardo Campos from the Brazilian Socialist party and an ally of the ruling coalition garnered 6%.

In the previous opinion poll from December, Rousseff support was 54%, Silva, 18%, Neves, 12% and Campos, 4%.

The two public opinion polls were done on March 20/21, interviewing 2.653 people through out the vast country and with a plus/minus two percentage points error margin.