Lula's Hand-Picked Successor Widens Lead in Poll

[Judi Lynn]

AUGUST 28, 2010, 2:16 P.M. ET.
Lula's Hand-Picked Successor Widens Lead in Poll

By ROGERIO JELMAYER
SAO PAULO, Brazil–A poll released Saturday for Brazil's October presidential election showed the hand-picked candidate of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva maintaining her lead by a sufficient margin to guarantee victory in the first round of voting.

Dilma Rousseff, of the left-leaning Workers' Party, or PT, got 51% of support from respondents, compared with 43% in an Ibope poll earlier this month, according to survey by the Ibope polling institute, published Saturday.

On the other hand, Jose Serra, from the Social Democrats' Party, or PSDB, slipped back to 27% of voters' support, from 32% in the previous poll, according to Ibope.

Trailing Ms. Rousseff and Mr. Serra was Green Party candidate Marina Silva, with backing from 7% of respondents.

According to analysts, Ms. Rousseff has improved her image with voters in recent months by appearing beside Mr. da Silva at dozens of public events. The ruling PT government's performance in leading Latin America's largest economy through the financial crisis and a brief recession last year also has been a positive for Mr. da Silva's hand-picked successor.

More:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703669004575457701119919946.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Peace Patriot]

1. Brazilians would be fools to vote for the rightwing, at this point.

But I am more than a bit worried about this election. Diebold/Microsoft is involved. And--whether true or not--a victory for the right would be treated as a bellweather to claim that the leftist democracy movement that has swept Latin America is over, and such a turnaround would be cheered in Washington DC no end, cuz our government does that--supports rightwing causes throughout Latin America, never leftist causes (representing the interests of the majority)--and they more than likely hate Lula da Silva (and by extension his Workers' Party and Rousseff) for, a) having Chavez's back against Washington nasty, relentless, "Big Lie" campaign, b) punching Washington in the nose on Honduras, and c) punching Washington in the nose on Iran. I'm sure they've been pouring multi-millions of our tax dollars through agencies like the USAID, and through covert agencies for dirty tricks and propaganda, to defeat Rousseff. With Diebold*, our true rulers--multinational corporations and war profiteers--have direct control over our voting results, and we have no control over those results--they are reported to us by machines that are run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. The American public cannot, by law, review this code and half the states don't even have a paper ballot that can be recounted or audited. Brazil has some controls on these demon machines that we do not--for instance, I believe that political party leaders can review the code--but still, where Diebold machines go, stolen elections follow.

If Rousseff's commanding lead is not reflected in the vote count, then we will know that the demon machines have struck again.

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*(In the U.S., ES&S just bought out Diebold, and gained an 80% monopoly over the U.S. voting machine 'market.' ES&S is worse than Diebold as to far rightwing connections. This is likely the true reason behind many of our troubles. The American people have not been properly represented in Congress or the White House since these demon machines were fast-tracked all over the country during the 2002 to 2004 period. I think Obama was elected--on the hopes of the American people for a government committed to peace and justice--but his mandate for peace and justice was significantly shaved, and he was saddled by a Puke/"Blue Dog"-infested Congress. Brazil has a more mixed privatized vote counting system--with more private entities involved, and, as I said, some rules that we don't have. Also, I don't know how ES&S/Diebold in the U.S. is related to the Diebold entity in Brazil (or how Microsoft fits in). But just the fact that their whole system is electronic and privately coded makes Brazil's elections very much endangered.)

[SocialistJan]

2. Let's hope it lasts until the election! eom