Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chosen candidate to succeed him, Dilma Rousseff, said she was certain of victory in a runoff election Sunday against a trailing rival. "I am confident in the results of today's vote," she told reporters before voting in her southern home city of Porto Alegre.
Brazil's 135 million voters were being called to make a choice between Rousseff, Lula's 62-year-old former cabinet chief, and Jose Serra, Sao Paulo state's 68-year-old former governor. Voting is compulsory in Brazil.
Surveys published Sunday suggested Rousseff would win with a lead of 10 to 12 points - too big an advantage for Serra to hope for an upset.
A Datafolha institute poll printed in the Folha de Sao Paulo daily suggested Rousseff would win the election with 55 percent of valid ballots, to 45 percent for Serra. A survey by the Ibope institute in the competing Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper predicted 56 percent for Rousseff and 44 percent for Serra.
Lula has to hand over power on January 1 next year after completing the maximum two consecutive terms permitted under Brazil's constitution. The 65-year-old leader is leaving office with a record 80-percent-plus popularity rating - something he deftly leveraged to give Rousseff a boost during her campaigning.
Lula, who voted on Sao Paulo's outskirts, where he started out as a factory metalworker and union leader, insisted he would have no role in Brazil's next administration.
"There is no possibility of an ex-president participating in a government. Dilma, if she is elected, has to form a government in her image. I only hope that she does more than I did," he said. Whoever wins Sunday's runoff will take charge of Latin America's biggest nation, the world's eighth-largest economy and a raised profile on the world stage.
Rousseff, a career bureaucrat who was once jailed and tortured in the 1970s under Brazil's then-military dictatorship for belonging to a guerrilla group, has vowed to maintain Lula's policies. Largely unknown just a few months months ago before rising to national prominence thanks to Lula's help, she served first as energy minister before being named as cabinet chief, analogous to prime minister.
Ahead of her campaign, she softened her dour, lumbering image with a cosmetic makeover. She also won public sympathy for beating lymphatic cancer.
Serra won recognition for a stint as health minister in the late 1990s during which he championed generic copies of HIV drugs for seropositive patients. Both Rousseff and Serra are technocrats respected for their management skills but lacking the commanding charisma of Lula.
In the first round, on October 3, Rousseff fell just short of the majority of ballots needed to avert the runoff, scoring 47 percent to Serra's 33 percent.
But, now, "everything indicates that candidate Rousseff will be elected president," said Guilherme Carvalhido, a political science professor at Veiga de Almeida University in Rio de Janeiro. He said "the only possibly surprising factor in this election could be the number of abstentions," which he put as high as 25 percent.
A public holiday next Tuesday meant many Brazilians were heading away from home for an extended weekend, compounding the likelihood of a high abstention rate despite the legal obligation to vote.
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