Daily Archives: October 5, 2014

Brazil

Brazil election results: Five reasons why one-time frontrunner Silva tanked

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silvalosesPhoto credit to Pedro Ladeira/Folhapress.

What the hell happened to Marina Silva’s presidential campaign?brazil

In the 2010 presidential election, Silva came out of nowhere to win 19.33% of the vote.

In 2014, she looked like she might win it all.

Instead, she blew what seemed like an insurmountable path to the October 26 runoff, falling into third place with just 21.32% of the vote, more than 10% behind the second-place finisher. That’s just under 2% more than she won four years ago.

When Brazilians choose their next president in three weeks, they’ll choose between the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, and the center-right former governor of Minas Gerais, Aécio Neves. Silva, now a two-time presidential loser, will be watching from the sidelines (though she’ll have at least some power as a kingmaker in what could be the closest presidential runoff in Brazilian politics since 1989).

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RELATED: In Depth — Brazil

RELATED: Neves will face Rousseff in runoff

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Fate — in the form of a tragic airplane crash — initially brought her into the 2014 presidential race, when her running mate Eduardo Campos’s plane crashed on the southern Brazilian coast on August 13.

Silva had wanted to make a second presidential bid all along, and polls showed that she was the most popular of Rousseff’s potential opponents. When her attempts to form a new party failed, Silva partnered with Campos, joining his center-left Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB, Brazilian Socialist Party) and serving as the party’s vice presidential candidate. In mid-August, she became the only clear choice to replace Campos on such short notice.

She peaked in late August, when a Datafolha poll showed Silva tied in the first round with Rousseff at 34%, Neves trailing with just 15%, and leading Rousseff with a nearly double-digit margin in a potential runoff.

Despite leading in the polls, despite having the support of a much stronger party organization in 2014, despite running a much more disciplined and politically moderate campaign and despite the sympathy of Brazilians mourning Campos, Silva failed.

So what happened? Here are five reasons that explain just why Silva will be sitting out the next round. Continue reading Brazil election results: Five reasons why one-time frontrunner Silva tanked →

Brazil

Brazil election results: Neves will face Rousseff in runoff

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dilmaaecioPhoto credit to Ricardo Moraes/Reuters.

It’s a stunning resurrection for a politician who spent most of the past two months languishing in third place.brazil

But Aécio Neves, a Brazilian senator and the center-right candidate of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB, Brazilian Social Democracy Party), will face incumbent president Dilma Rousseff, the candidate of the center-left governing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers Party), in an October 26 runoff.

Rousseff led with around 41.5% of the vote to just 33.5% for Neves and 21% for Marina Silva, the one-time frontrunner and the candidate of the Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB, Brazilian Socialist Party). Silva became the party’s presidential candidate only in late August after her original running mate, former Pernambuco governor Eduardo Campos, died in an airplane crash on August 13.

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RELATED: In Depth — Brazil

RELATED: Will Marina Silva be squeezed out of the Brazilian runoff?

RELATED: Neves struggles to puncture the Dilma-Marina Show

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In the days and weeks after Campos’s death, Silva, a former environmental minister and a one-time Rousseff ally, vaunted to the top of the polls, which showed for weeks that she would easily advance to the runoff against Rousseff, and that she had a shot at defeating Rousseff in a one-on-one contest.

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Instead, Rousseff will face Neves, the former governor of Minas Gerais, who suddenly seems to have the best chance of unseating the PT in the 12 years since it first came to power under the still popular former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Continue reading Brazil election results: Neves will face Rousseff in runoff →

Latvia

Latvia election results: center-right coalition set for reelection

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latviareelecPhoto credit to LETA.

Basically, Latvia’s election turned out nearly as everyone imagined it would. Latvia has had a center-right government since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and it will do so again. latvia

A coalition of center-right parties, led by prime minister Laimdota Straujuma, will continue to govern Latvia, continuing the country’s cautious approach to budget discipline. Straujuma, a former agriculture minister, known as a tough negotiator among EU Circles, has won her first electoral mandate since becoming prime minister in January, and she will hope that her country’s low debt and higher economic growth in the years ahead can result in lower unemployment. Even as Russia shakes its sable against NATO, rattling nerves in all three Baltic state, there’s reason to believe that the worst of Latvia’s difficult past half-decade is over.

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RELATED: Latvian right hopes to ride Russia threat to reelection

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Though it endured a painful internal devaluation and a series of budget reforms over the last five years, Latvia entered the eurozone in January, and Straujuma’s predecessor, Valdis Dombrovsksis, who resigned late last year after the freak collapse of a supermarket roof near Riga, the capital, is set to become the European Commission’s next vice president for ‘the euro and social dialogue,’ making him one of the most important voices on setting EU economic and monetary policy over the next five years.

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The opposition Sociāldemokrātiskā Partija ‘Saskaņa’ (Social Democratic Party “Harmony,” which previously contested Latvian elections as the wider ‘Harmony Centre’ alliance), though it won the greatest number of seats in the Saeima, Latvia’s parliament, will be unlikely to find coalition partners in light of its role as the party of ethnic Russian interests and its cozy ties to Moscow and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Having lost seven seats from its pre-election total, the result will certainly be something of a setback for its leader, Riga mayor Nils Ušakovs, who had tried to emphasize the party’s social democratic nature, even as he offered sympathetic words with respect to  Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. It follows a similarly poor showing in the May European parliamentary elections.

Continue reading Latvia election results: center-right coalition set for reelection →