RIO DE JANEIRO (Reu-ters) – Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff and environmentalist Marina Silva would be tied in the first round of elections on Oct 5, a poll suggested yesterday, as a meteoric rise in support for Silva showed signs of plateauing.
The survey by polling firm Sensus showed Rousseff would get 29.8 per cent in the first round of the vote, with Silva on 29.5 per cent.
Silva is still shown winning a likely runoff, taking 47.6 per cent of the vote against Rousseff’s 32.8 per cent, according to the survey.
Two other polls published this week showed Silva’s dramatic rise in the polls has levelled out and Rousseff has gained some ground.
Analysts said the polls appeared to show the novelty of Silva’s candidacy and the outpouring of sympathy over the death of her party’s original candidate in a plane crash had begun to wane.
Revisions to her proposals, including the withdrawal of a commitment to back gay marriage after evangelical pastors denounced her, has also lost Silva some points among her core urban middle-class supporters.
Three weeks after Silva was thrust into the race, Rousseff has taken off the gloves and begun to attack her rival, painting her as a wild card whose policies would cause layoffs and undo social gains made under the ruling Workers’ Party.
