SAO PAULO (Reuters) – They look like slick, Hollywood-produced TV ads for tourism in Brazil: gleaming beaches, smiling faces, and sweeping panoramic shots of skyscrapers and waterfalls.
In reality, they’re campaign ads for Dilma Rousseff, the ruling party candidate in Brazil’s October 3 presidential election. The emotional punch and sheer aesthetic beauty of the spots, and their clear superiority over any other candidate’s ads, may ensure more than any other single factor that Rousseff holds on to her 20-plus percentage point lead in polls.
The final seven weeks or so of Brazilian campaigns are dominated by television.
The government mandates that all broadcast channels carry a 50-minute block of free airtime each afternoon and evening except Sundays, for presidential, gubernatorial and other candidates to make their pitch.
In production value, Rousseff’s ads rival anything that was made for Barack Obama’s US presidential campaign in 2008.
During the 10-minute spots, Rousseff, 62, describes her rise from jailed student protest leader in the 1960s — “Brazil had to change,” she says with a wistful smile — to chief of staff for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula then assures voters in grandfatherly fashion that Rousseff is best-positioned to continue Brazil’s recent economic boom.
Opposition leaders worry that the ads are creating a false mythology around a career technocrat who, they say, lacks executive experience and leans farther left than Lula.
Yet Rousseff’s support in polls has soared by more than 10 percentage points since free airtime started last week. She may no longer need a runoff to defeat her nearest challenger, former Sao Paulo state governor Jose Serra.
The real coup is the way the ads appeal to the most crucial bloc of voters in the race: the ascendant lower-middle class that has reaped the biggest gains under Lula’s presidency. This group, known as “Class C” in Brazil with a family income of between $655 and $2,820 per month, has swelled by 32 million people in the last five years to 90 million, or about half of the country’s population, according to IstoE magazine.
The ads are like a catalog of how life has improved for that demographic under Lula. Tuesday’s spot showed a new middle school in Recife, a city in the impoverished northeast; a new university with discount meals for about $1 for students; new subway stations in Sao Paulo; new highways and bridges; and vast fields of crops, a symbol of Brazil’s agricultural might.
“Brazil has a unique chance to keep growing,” Rousseff says confidently, wearing a pearl necklace and open-necked white shirt. “I have an opportunity to consolidate this process of inclusion, of improving all people’s lives.”
Serra’s low-budget ads suffer by
comparison
In a country with low newspaper readership, and where presidential debates generally fail to generate many viewers — much less change votes — it’s unclear how Rousseff’s rivals will be able to overcome the advantage generated by the ads.
Even some Brazilians who say that Rousseff lacks Lula’s popular touch find themselves entranced.
“I feel patriotic when I watch her shows,” said Pia Muqutabi, a housewife in Sao Paulo. “They remind you how much ground we’ve covered, how Brazil really is changing for good.”
By contrast, Serra’s ads have not done enough to change his reputation as a wooden, though administratively accomplished, figure who is more in touch with Brazil’s business elite than the common voter.
His comparatively low-budget spots are built around hand-held camera footage of Serra meeting with supporters in their homes and in places like health clinics — a possible reflection of recent fund-raising struggles as Serra falls farther behind in polls.
The former health minister has focused on problems such as a crack cocaine epidemic in cities, and policies he implemented during a previous government in the 1990s — ancient history for many in a country with a median age of 28.9 years.
“The truth is that Serra could have Steven Spielberg and George Lucas making his ads and it wouldn’t help that much.
The fundamentals are against him,” said Luiz Guilherme Piva, a political analyst.
As a result, Rousseff has been free to address potential weaknesses and target groups of voters.
For example, the decision to openly discuss her dissident years during Brazil’s dictatorship was a surprise. Rousseff’s first ad featured her and other former cellmates discussing their camaraderie and patriotism — neutralizing any attempt by the opposition to portray her as a radical.
She also spent several minutes addressing what polls showed was a relatively weak demographic for her — women — by addressing serious issues such as healthcare but also by laughing about the “craziness” she felt as a young mother, checking to see if her baby was sleeping at night.
“We’ve come a long way,” she said.
