Before the 2014 FIFA World Cup, most people expected the Brazilian team to be brilliant and the hosting of the event to be fraught with risk if not downright shambolic, given the preceding social tensions and protests and the last minute rush to be ready for kick-off. On the contrary, it was the organisation of the tournament that was exceptional and the Brazilian team that was dire.
The World Cup confounded expectations on many fronts, not least because it witnessed the greatest humiliation ever suffered by Brazilian football – the 7-1 dubbing by Germany was even worse than the ‘maracanazo’ of 1950 – and because it gave rise to the general feeling among the thousands of visiting fans and the millions of viewers worldwide that this was the best World Cup for a long time.
The embarrassing performance of Luiz Felipe Scolari’s team ensured that there would be no World Cup bounce for embattled President Dilma Rousseff, who is running for re-election on October 5, in the midst of serious political, economic and social difficulties. And even in the afterglow of global appreciation for the successful hosting of the championship, Brazilians are more preoccupied with the daily problems they had put aside during the football carnival.
Indeed, the latest polls show that Ms Rousseff looks unlikely to win outright in the first round of voting, having seen her comfortable lead over her main rival, Aécio Neves, reduced since February from 27 percentage points to just four last week. Ms Rousseff’s biggest concern, however, appears not to be so much the challenge posed by Mr Neves but her own public disapproval ratings and the worsening economic situation out of which she seems unable to lift her country.
Inflation is 6.51 per cent; unemployment is becoming a major worry, as industrial production has nose-dived in the last three months and is estimated to contract by at least one per cent by the end of the year, making job cuts a distinct possibility. Meanwhile, public services continue to deteriorate in Brazil’s biggest cities – one of the factors behind the public protests before the World Cup – and daily urban life is becoming for many more and more intolerable.
There is a growing sense that the government is not doing enough to improve electricity, water, sewerage and transport services, made worse by comparison with the billions thrown at hosting the World Cup – somewhere between US$11 billion and US$14.5 billion – and the people seem to be losing faith in Ms Rousseff’s left-of-centre Workers’ Party, which under President Lula da Silva had overseen a period of sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. Questions about management, Brazilian style, are now not confined to Mr Scolari, they are increasingly being asked about Ms Rousseff and her ability to overhaul the economy.
Mr Neves, a centrist and Eduardo Campos, another candidate from the left, are riding this wave of discontent. If social and economic conditions remain the same, the likeliest scenario, according to the most recent polls, would see Mr Campos eliminated in the first round, with most of his voters then giving their support to Mr Neves in the second round.
Mr Neves is favoured by the business sector which would like to see a return to the market-friendly environment that characterised Brazil’s economic boom of the past decade. He is promising, moreover, to restore the country’s fiscal credibility by controlling public expenditure without somehow sacrificing the social welfare projects which Lula championed and the popularity of which continues to be critical for Ms Rousseff to retain her voter base. Just how he can deliver on this promise is actually the conundrum that the incumbent herself faces in the context of a worsening fiscal situation.
Ms Rousseff has less than three months to show her mettle. She is likely to strive to shore up her voter base through a sustained recommitment to social programmes, but she will also have to foster the delivery of better public services, even as she works to dispel the perceptions of corruption occasioned by the sharing out of infrastructure contracts for the World Cup and the Olympics in two years’ time. It is, obviously, an uphill task but not one beyond Brazilian ingenuity, as the hosting of the World Cup proved. Ms Rousseff’s political courage is not in question either. She will, however, have to display a lot more dexterity, tactical nous, boldness and willingness to take tough decisions regarding some of her supporting cast, than was shown by the hapless Mr Scolari, if she is to get the economic results she needs to lift Brazilian spirits in time for the October election.
