MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian pollsters missed percentages but 'confirmed tendencies'

The main pollster anticipated 46% for Dilma, 27% for Neves and 24% for Marina; final results were: 41.5%; 33.35% and 21%

Although pollsters in Brazil got it right with President Dilma Rousseff victory and the growth tendency of runner up Aecio Neves in the last days leading to Sunday's presidential election, they failed dismally in percentage estimates.

Ibope the main pollster in the country on 4 October anticipated that Rousseff would garner 46% of valid ballots, Neves, 27% and Marina Silva, 24%. Taking into account the error estimates those numbers would be between 44% and 48% for Dilma; 25% and 29% for Neves and 26% and 22% for Marina. Final valid vote results from the Electoral Tribunal were: 41.59% for Dilma; 33.35% for Neves and 21.32% for Marina.

“The speed of change in preferences for a candidate was very high. The person voting is waiting longer and only decides at last minute” argued Marcia Cavallari, head of Ibope. “Final results were a prolongation of our reported tendency lines”.

Mauro Paulino from Datafolha also argued that “there is a growing group of voters that decide on the same ballot day”.

But at state level the mistakes were even greater. The Workers party candidate for Sao Paulo governor Alexandre Padilha was furious with pollsters since during the campaign they only registered a 5% vote intention for him and thus was left out of the media coverage. However finally he obtained 18% of valid ballots.

Aecio Neves in the past has sued the social network Facebook and searchers such as Google, Yahoo and Bing since until very recently his name was associated with words as “cocaine”, “heavy drinker”, “sniffer”, which have disappeared and linked him to his alleged playboy past.

However other words have surfaced such as “airport” for allegedly building a landing strip with public funds in an uncle's farm land; likewise 'mason' because last April Neves gave a conference at one of the temples of that institution.

The magazine Piauí ironically published that Neves was prepared to sue several of the pollsters because they consistently showed him in third position, behind the two ladies, Dilma and Marina, until Sunday results.

However it must be said that his past reputation as a womanizer and party man has become a liability among conservatives and religious groups in Brazil which are growing lobbies and voters, and could decide an election.