SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Ruling party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff extended her lead over rival Jose Serra after taking advantage of free broadcast advertising, a poll showed yesterday. Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s former chief of staff, jumped to 47 per cent of voters’ support from 41 per cent last week — her biggest lead yet in a Datafolha poll.
Serra, former Sao Paulo state governor and health minister, fell 3 percentage points to 30 per cent of voter intention.
The 6-point surge for Rousseff in advance of October’s election was mostly credited to increased exposure after the presidential candidates took to the airwaves on Tuesday with free television and radio advertising, Datafolha said.
“Serra’s campaign seems to have received its death certificate with the release of the Datafolha poll, which shows an enormous difference in favour of Dilma Rousseff (from the Workers’ Party),” Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, Brazil’s largest daily, said in an editorial yesterday.
With recent poll results increasingly showing Rousseff winning in the first round, she might have a stronger mandate to push through her legislative agenda.
“It gives greater legitimacy for Dilma,” said Cesar Alexandre Carvalho, a partner at consultancy CAC Consultoria Politica in Brasilia. “A woman president, coming to power in a first-round vote, obviously she will have greater bargaining power. Now, what remains to be seen is what she will do with that, how it will be used to approve certain projects.”
