Colombia internacionalUniversidad de los Andesinfcisoc@uniandes.edu.co ISSN (Versión impresa): 0121-5612ISSN (Versión en línea): 1960-6004COLOMBIA

2006 Lucio Renno

NOTES ON THE BRAZILIAN 2006 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: THE WINDING ROAD TO DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION

Colombia internacional, julio-diciembre, número 064 Universidad de los Andes

Bogotá, Colombia pp. 154-165

Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y el Caribe, España y Portugal

Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México

http://redalyc.uaemex.mx

C olombia Internacional 64, jul - dic 2006, 154 - 165

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NOTES ON THE BRAZILIAN 2006PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS:The Winding Road to Democratic ConsolidationLucio Renno1

recibido 02/11/06, aprobado 10/11/06

Este artículo describe las principales características de las elecciones presidenciales de 2006 en Brasil. El artículo explora las dos características definitorias de esta elección: la interrelación entre cómo el voto económico retrospectivo y las visiones sobre la corrupción afectaron la volatilidad del voto y el resultado final de la elección. El artículo concluye señalando las implicaciones de las elecciones para el fortalecimiento de la democracia brasilera.

Palabras clave: Brasil, elecciones presidenciales, voto económica retrospectivo, corrupción

The paper describes the main characteristics of the 2006 Brazilian Presidential elections. It explores two defining traits of this elections: the interplay between how retrospective economic voting and views towards corruption affected vote volatility and the final result of the election. The paper concludes by pointing out implications of the current elections to the strengthening of democracy in Brazil.

Key words: Brazil, presidential elections, retrospective economic voting, corruption

Introduction he goal of this paper is to describe the 2006 Brazilian presidential

elections: their dynamics and defining traits. It is written in "real time" given that the final version was finished a few days after the second round of the pre-sidential elections that took place on October 29th, 2006.The article postulates some hypotheses that could be tested in the future, once appropriate data have been collected. Therefore, the goal is necessarily modest: to discuss the main puzzles of this election and to propose answers that should be tested empirically in the near future.

In the following section, I pose the campaign's main puzzle and narrate the events that preceded it. I then pro-pose a few key factors that make this campaign relevant for Brazilian history

and hypotheses that might offer answers to the puzzle. I finally conclude by spe-culating on this election's broader impli-cations for the process of strengthening Brazilian democracy.The main puzzle of this election is how could a presidential candidate running for reelection, tainted by involvement in several corruption scandals, emerge victorious. The answer to this question is related mostly to the campaign rhetoric the two major candidates utilized, along with characteristics of this election that produced a context favorable for retrospective voting.

1.The Election Events Until the last week of Septem-

ber, the 2006 Brazilian elections, were uneventful, even monotonous. It was a campaign marked by Lula da Silva's, the Workers' Party (PT) candidate for ree-lection, comfortable lead in the polls,

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which reached its highpoint in earlySeptember,with a margin of 20 percen-tage points over the runner-up, GeraldoAlckmin, of the Brazilian Social Demo-cratic Party (PSDB) coalition. No othercandidate had a chance. It was basicallya one-man race for most of the cam-paign.

The general feeling was that Lulawas going to win in the first round, onOctober 1st, with a large margin overall other candidates, and the expecta-tion was that negotiations would swiftlyensue regarding the construction of anew governing coalition. Next, themonths of November and Decemberwould then be marked by discussionsregarding an ambitious reform agendathat would include changes in the taxsystem, labor laws, and even significantchanges in the political system thatwould be implemented during the firstyear of Lula’s second term. Reality pro-ved to be different. If only Brazilianelections were so predictable.

This very likely scenario wasshattered by an unexpected event thatoccurred about a week prior to the firstround of the election.Two members ofthe PT campaign coordination commit-tee were arrested in Sao Paulo with a lit-tle under US$1 million of unaccountedmoney and they were accused of tryingto buy incriminating information aboutthe leading Sao Paulo candidate forgovernor, Jose Serra, of the BrazilianSocial Democratic Party (PSDB) coali-tion. Initially, the PT campaign did notreact to the matter and assumed theevent would not attract media attentionand therefore would not become a scan-

dal, given that it involved the oppositionparty and could harm both sides. Suchreasoning proved to be nothing butwishful thinking.The event gained tre-mendous media prominence, resulted inthe opening of judicial proceduresagainst the Workers’ Party in the Supre-me Electoral Court and forcefullyreminded voters of the previous scandalsthat marked the PT administration atthe federal level.The “dossier” scandal, asit was dubbed,was similar to other scan-dals in that President Lula’s closest aidswere involved in it, but Lula himselfclaimed he knew nothing of the matter.The scandal cost the PT a victory in thefirst round.

The October 1st election resultsconfirmed the unexpected: Lula recei-ved 48% of the valid votes, failing towin the required 50% of the votenecessary for victory in the first round.The other surprise was that Alckminobtained 41% of the votes, considerablymore than most pollsters expected,falling on the extreme upper edge ofthe margin of error in vote intentionpolls. Not only was there going to be asecond round, but it would be a verycompetitive with an unpredictable out-come. Excitement finally returned tothe Brazilian electoral campaign.

Not really. Again, Brazilian elec-toral politics proved to be mischievous.The second round campaign was also asurprise.The first campaign event was adebate between the two candidates, thefirst in which a Brazilian presidentattempting reelection participated2.Alckmin assumed a very aggressivestance against an unprepared Lula, who

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2 Recall, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in his successful 1998 reelection bid, never attended a debate.

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was reading numbers from notes andwho failed to provide straight answers.Still, Lula is a very sensitive politician,and even though he did not fare as wellas Alckmin, he appeared honest and faston his feet on some occasions. Further-more, he provided a justification for thecorruption scandals. Lula claimed thatwhenever he discovered some wrong-doing by his allies, he immediately tookpunitive action agains them. He alsoclaimed he was never directly involvedin any of the scandals.

When the first polls after thedebate were released, Datafolha revea-led that 43% of the respondents main-tained that Alckmin had won thedebate, against 41% who thought Lulahad the advantage. But, surprisingly,Lula’s lead over Alckmin increased to 14percentage points: Lula received 56% ofthe valid responses against 42% forAlckmin.This lead increased during theremainder of the campaign, reaching toabout 20 points during the last few daysprior to the second round run-off.Alckmin actually saw his vote inten-tions decrease to 38% of the valid res-ponses, fewer than the percentage ofvalid votes he received in the firstround! The October 29th run-off elec-tions confirmed these results, with Lularegistering 60% of the valid votesagainst 39% for Alckmin’s.

This paper will propose tentativeanswers to these alterations in voteintention and in the actual electionresults, exploring both candidates’ cam-paign strategies and rhetoric. As we goabout narrating the events, four centralaspects of this campaign will emerge.

First, and unfortunately, corruptionaccusations regained central stage inBrazilian national politics, damaging therecent advances towards the strengthe-ning and deepening of democracy inBrazil. Second, the top two candidates’campaign strategies and rhetoric werecentral in explaining the surprisingelectoral results. The 2006 electionsconfirm how negative ads are decisivecampaign tools, and how they are ableto change Brazilian electoral results.However, exaggerated negative ads canharm those promote them. Third, thiscampaign was unique in Brazil becausefor the first time voters could contrastthe performance at the federal level ofthe two most prominent political forcesin Brazil, the PT and the PSDB. ThePSDB coalition governed Brazil from1994 to 2002, with two consecutiveFernando Henrique Cardoso terms andthe PT as the leading opposition party.The 2002 PT victory was fundamentalfor the consolidation of democracy inBrazil because it initiated a process ofalternation in power, offering a politicalgroup that had never ascended to thecentral government such opportunity.Therefore, in this year’s election, voterscould look back and compare the twoprevious administrations. Voters hadnever had the chance of doing this inBrazilian history at the federal level3. Infact, Lula’s campaign strategy was verymuch based on comparisons with theCardoso administration.

Looking back and contrastingthe performance of distinct politicalparties in power is in the essence ofretrospective voting, which is seen as

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3 At the municipal and state levels, voters had already been able to make such comparisons. For an enlightening analysis of onesuch occasion at the state level, see Soares (2000).

the normal type of vote calculation indemocratic regimes (Stokes 2001).Given that a good part of this electionwas about comparing the distinct admi-nistrations, it shows that Braziliandemocracy has come a long way in itsprocess of maturation. If not tarnishedby the several corruption scandals, evenduring the campaign itself, this electionwould have been a celebration of theconsolidation of democratic governan-ce in Brazil.

The fourth and final point isthat this campaign had no significantimpact on economic indicators. Incomparison to 2002 when there was arun against the currency, an increase inrisk investment, and rising inflation,the 2006 campaign produced no eco-nomic turbulence (Spanakos andRenno 2006).The sea of tranquility inthe economic sphere, despite a contes-ted election, is yet another indicationthat elections have become “normali-zed” in Brazil; they no longer areexceptional moments of uncertainty.This relates to the clarity of candida-tes’ campaign positions and the factthat the two principal candidates pro-ved to be responsible in the manage-ment of the economy, as well as“market friendly”.

The conjunction of all of thesefactors is fundamental to provide atentative answer to the key puzzle ofthe 2006 election: how can a candida-te for reelection, whose administrationand campaign were marked by recu-rrent corruption accusations, emergevictorious?

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2. The Campaign Dilemma:Corruption versus Achievement

Figure 1 below shows the per-centage of vote intentions for all candi-dates during the 2006 elections, trackingthe most important moments of theelectoral schedule: the formal beginningof the campaign is identified by the firstsolid line, the beginning of the FreeElectoral Airtime with the dotted lineand the first round election with thesolid, thicker line4. It contains data fromthe top four polling firms in Brazil.

First, this was a one-man race formost of the campaign. Lula assumed anearly lead and was never really threate-ned until the end of the first round.OnlyAlckmin was a viable contender. Heloi-sa Helena, from the radical PSOL and itsleft-wing coalition, had her momentright after the formal beginning of thecampaign, but because she did not haveenough funds to mount a viable cam-paign, and therefore was not able to pro-fit from her initial upsurge in the polls.

Clearly, Lula had an easy andenjoyable ride during most of the cam-paign with a comfortable lead over hisadversaries. Around mid-September,when the “Dossier” scandal hit the fan,the media reminded voters of the recu-rrent scandals that haunted the PT admi-nistration, and Alckmin began to gainground. Even though his vote intentionsincreased noticeably with his appearan-ces in the Free Electoral Airtime (see thedotted line in the figure below). Still,Lula’s support remained relatively stable,even though he failed to receive enoughvotes to win in the first round.

4 The Free Electoral Airtime is the only period in the campaign were political ads are allowed in the television and radio.Twicea day, for 40 minutes all candidates have access to air their ads. Minutes are allocated according to the size of the candidates’coalitions in Congress.

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A.The Corruption ScandalsThe “dossier” scandal clearly defi-

ned Lula’s bad luck in the first round.But what was the scandal about and whywas it so devastating for Lula’s prospectsof victory in the first round? The scandalinvolved close Lula aides in a scheme tobuy information that would incriminateJose Serra, the then PSDB candidate forthe governorship of Sao Paulo. Serra hada comfortable lead in the polls and wasgoing to win in São Paulo.The eruptionof the scandal only consolidated hischances and directly harmed the PT

candidate and Lula’s key economic advi-sor,Aloisio Mercadante.The alleged dos-sier linked Serra, a former Minister ofHealth in the Cardoso administration, tothe “bloodsuckers” scandal, which invol-ved the selling of overpriced ambulancesto municipal governments using federaldeputies individual budgetary amend-ments. This “bloodsucker” scheme wasbased on the payment of bribes tomayors and federal deputies so that theywould by their equipment. The docu-ments that where part of the “dossier”scandal in the current campaign indica-

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Figura 1. Percentage of vote intention in the Brazilian presidential elections of 2006 for all candidates and all

polling institutes. The data were obtained from http://noticias.uol.com.br/fernandorodrigues/arquivos/eleico-

es/2006/ and include polls from Datafolha, Sensus, Ipobe, Vox Populi and IBPS. The first reference line marks

the formal beginning of the first round campaign and the second one the first round election.

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ted that the scheme had started duringSerra’s mandate as Minister of Health.

Investigations of both scandalsare still underway, so it could be thateven after the election more details maybecome public. In fact, the PSDB coa-lition repeatedly made it clear duringthe campaign that this will remain a keyissue next year, endangering any possi-bility of negotiation between the twocamps. This event could even lead toimpeachment petitions against Lula if itis proven that he knew or participatedin the scandals.

Still, the “dossier” scandal duringthe campaign reminded voters about aneven earlier scandal: the “mensalao”scandal. In June, 2005, a close supporterof the Lula government, Roberto Jef-ferson of the Brazilian Labor Party(PTB) from Rio de Janeiro,was accusedof organizing a bribery scheme in thepostal service, He retaliated by denoun-cing the Lula government for buyingthe allies in order to obtain their sup-port for the governent’s proposals inCongress. In Portuguese, Mensalaomeans the “big stipend”.The claim wasthat the Lula government, using privateorganizations that benefited frompublic contracts, paid a monthly stipendto members of right-wing parties in hiscoalition to guarantee their favorablevotes for the government’s legislativeproposals.

According to Jefferson, Lula’schief of staff, and then the government’sstrongman, Jose Dirceu, spearheadedthe scheme. President Lula finally firedDirceu, and then he was expelled fromCongress. Lula claimed he knew not-hing about the scandal. Several otherclose aides to Lula, including the thenPresident of the PT, Jose Genuino, werealso involved and had to step down.

In essence, because of the repea-ted scandals that plagued the PT admi-nistration, Lula lost most of his veryclose allies during his administration.For different reasons, Antonio Palocci,the Minister of Finance, Jose Gushiken,head of the government’s Communica-tion Department, Waldomiro Diniz, achief coordinator of Executive-Legisla-tive relations, Ricardo Berzoini, thePresident of the PT and Lula’s 2006campaign coordinator, all fell in disgra-ce, just to mention the most prominentones. Scandal after scandal, the PT’s topechelon was devastated by involvementin corruption scandals.

In sum, the “dossier” scandal wasso influential in the first round of theelection because it brought to mind allof the past scandals of Lula’s govern-ment. In addition, the opposition tookadvantage of this situation by amplyusing the scandals in their attack adsagainst Lula.The negative campaign thatAlckmin orchestrated against Lula wasdecisive in amplifying the impact of thescandals.Alckmin and his campaign stra-tegists made sure to increase the visibilityof the corruption scandals in denigratingthe image of the government.

In fact, Alckmin’s vote intentionsonly mounted when his campaign adop-ted a more critical view of the govern-ment’s behavior regarding corruption.Early in the campaign,Alckmin adopteda more positive tone, talking about hisachievements as governor of Sao Paulo,and emphasizing his political trajectory.This was his strategy during the first twoweeks of campaign, but the results wereunimpressive. Lula also assumed thesame strategy, and the result was anincrease in his vote intentions in July andAugust.Alckmin wasted too much timeon this faulty strategy, allowing Lula to

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calmly navigate through the election.Only when the “dossier” scandal wasuncovered did the gap between him andAlckmin decrease rapidly. Because Alck-min placed the corruption accusationscenter stage, Lula failed to win in thefirst round.

Alckmin’s surprise up-surgeduring the last few days of the first roundand his astounding 41% of the validvotes (over 40 million votes) gave hiscampaign momentum and energy. Onthe other hand, the fact that Lula did notwin in the first round came as a defeatfor the Lula camp. What one expectedwas that Alckmin’s popularity wouldcontinue to mount, and the secondround would be a close and unpredicta-ble race.Why did this not happen?

B. Campaign Events and RhetoricCampaign events and well crafted

political advertisements matter in Brazi-lian elections. Given the vote intentionvolatility that exists in Brazil and the factthat voters’ partisan preferences are onlymoderately crystallized, campaign eventscan make a significant difference in elec-tion outcomes (Baker,Ames, and Renno2006). Lula did not participate in any ofthe two first round debates, includingthe final one a couple of days before theelection. Some analysts and Lula himselflater said he regretted not appearing atthem.Some speculated that appearing inthe final debate might have enabled himto win in the first round.

The above statement is questio-nable.The overall the indication is thatLula’s participation in the four secondround debates was very favorable forhim. The first debate of the secondround was decisive for the election.Alckmin came out strong and veryaggressive. At first, Lula was astounded

by Alckmin’s performance and it tookhim time to recover.Toward the end ofthe debate, members of the PSDB coa-lition, already excited with the results ofthe first round, were celebrating Alck-min’s performance and talking aboutvictory in the second round.

This was until the first polls afterthe debate came out showing that Lula’smargin of victory had increased tremen-dously. The polls were questioned, butthe final result of the election confirmedLula’s lead.What explains this impressivecome-back? More than that, the obviousquestion that comes to mind, which isthe central puzzle of the 2006 elections,is how could the PT, involved up to itsneck in so many accusations of corrup-tion, manage to win the presidentialelection, have allies win the governors-hip in 19 of the 27 states and return tothe 53rd legislature as the second largestparty in the Chamber of Deputies?

The answer lies in the very effec-tive PT campaign strategy. Lula and thePT, especially in the second round, con-trolled the campaign agenda. Eventhough Lula was put on the defensivewith the corruption accusations, hiscampaign counterattacked by showingLula as a true representative of the poorand by stressing key PSDP issues, suchas privatizations, in the electoral debate.

First, Lula had an advantage,namely his personal life-story. Lula ledthe life that most Brazilians currentlylead. He sounds believable when heclaims to be part of the Brazilian majo-rity of excluded citizens who unders-tands their demands. He also soundsbelievable when he says he will alwaysprioritize the poor. His personal lifemakes his statements credible.The Alck-min campaign’s first mistake was to por-trait him as candidate of the people.

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Instead of running on his last name,which is foreign and not as popularlyappealing as Lula da Silva, he utilized hisfirst name in the campaign,Geraldo.Thiswas a clear attempt to portrait Alckminas a representative of the underclass.Obviously, it sounded false.

A second trick the Lula campaignused involved restoring to the agenda thediscussion about privatizations. Lula, inhis second round campaign ads, forcefullymade the point that Alckmin’s victorywould represent a return to the era ofprivatizations that dominated the Cardo-so administration. Even though this is nolonger a practical issue in Brazil becausethere simply are not that many stateenterprises that can be privatized, theissue constitutes a significant cleavageamong voters. Alckmin was placed onthe defensive for most of the secondround as he sought to convince votersthat he would not privatize any of thefew remaining state-owned businesses.

A third aspect that favored Lula inthe second round was the debates. Asmentioned previously,Alckmin appearedvery aggressive in the first debate. Lularesponded to most questions, but he cer-tainly played the card of being wronglyaccused. He pleaded innocence to all thescandals and affirmed that he punishedthose involved. The facts corroborateLula’s version.What seems to have hap-pened is that Alckmin was excessivelyhostile and belligerent in the first debate.He sounded artificial in some ways,giventhat he has a reputation for supporting adocile temper. Hence, his accusationsagainst Lula apparently back fired. Inste-ad of damaging Lula, it hurt Alckmin.

Once the following debatescame around, Lula returned to his oldself, and clearly had the lead in discus-sing the central topics and in sounding

convincing and on-top of the issues.His political ads in the Free ElectoralAirtime were also crucial to his electo-ral success. Lula’s campaign stressed theachievements of his government andcontrasted them with the prior twoadministrations of Fernando HenriqueCardoso and the PSDB coalition.

C. Contrasting two Distinct Administrations

As was noted earlier, a definingtrait of this campaign was that, for thefirst time, voters could contrast theadministrations of two rival parties/coa-litions and cast their votes based uponthis comparison. In this election votershad an opportunity to look back and askthemselves which of the two major poli-tical groups in Brazil had produced morefor them in a classic retrospective votingstyle. Lula’s campaign took full advanta-ge of this situation and directed its effortstoward comparing policy results betwe-en the two administrations, the currentPT government and Cardoso’s previoustwo terms.The results of those compari-sons clearly favored Lula on issues suchas employment, education, health andinvestment in social assistance programs.In fact, the Lula campaign stressed thislast issue. The PSDB coalition failed torespond to Lula’s comparison of the twoadministrations’ policy achievements.Their only issue was the corruptionaccusations. Given that Lula completelycontrolled the second round of the elec-tion, and effectively reversed the growthspree of Alckmin, voters placed moreimportance on Lula’s accomplishmentsin the social and economic realms thanhis errors in the ethical/corruption scan-dals.The dilemma of this campaign wasresolved in favor of achievements and,therefore, benefited Lula.

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D. It’s the Economy, Stupid!A final aspect of the campaign

further benefited Lula: This timearound, the markets did not react nega-tively to the campaign. In 2002, Spana-kos and Renno (2006) show that theruns against the currency, the dramaticincrease in the risk of investment inBrazil, the downfall of the stock marketand the increase in the exchange ratewere clearly related to the campaign andthe uncertainty it was causing for inves-tors. In 2002, Lula was still an incognitafor the financial markets and investors.His rhetoric was not clear and favoredchange and the PT history was one ofopposition to macro-economic stability.Even Jose Serra, the then PSDB/PMDBcandidate for president, talked aboutchanging the economic model and pro-moting growth in spite of inflation con-trol. Spanakos and Renno claimed thatthis situation created a disjunction ofpreferences between voters who sup-ported Lula and his pro-growth rhetoricand investors who preferred a moreconservative discourse, aimed at macro-economic stability. This preferenceincongruence created the economicturbulence in 2002.

In 2006, nothing similar happe-ned. Lula was no longer a stranger andenemy of the financial markets. His fis-cal and monetary policies were quiteconservative throughout his administra-tion and the economic indicators reve-aled this: very low inflation, very lowrisk of investment in the country andvery stable exchange rates, each ancho-red in high interest rates. The figurebelow contrasts economic indicators inthe 2002 and 2006 elections by placingdotted lines at the beginning of thecampaigns and solid lines demarcatingthe end of the campaigns.

In 2002 inflation and theexchange rate skyrocketed, in spite ofstable interest rates. Brazilian monetarypolicy is heavily based on interest rateswhich serve as an anchor for inflation.Even maintaining high interest rateswas not sufficient to curb the economicinstability caused by the 2002 elections.After the 2002 elections, economicindicators returned to prior levels oreven improved, but only because ofvery conservative and harsh measuresenacted by the Lula administration thatassumed power in 2003.

Clearly, the 2006 elections didnot pose any threat to economic insta-bility. As the lines in the figure forexchange rates, inflation and interestrates show, each remained stable.Therewas actually an improvement in theemployment rate. Hence, the economywas impervious to speculative attacks in2006, especially due to the fact thatneither Lula nor Alckmin was viewed asthreats to the financial markets. In theend, this also was indirectly favorablefor Lula because other candidates couldnot blame him for the instability as wasthe case in 2002.

However, the stability of eco-nomic indicators during the electionsindicates more than just anotheraspect of the current race that favoredLula. It further suggests the “normali-zation” of Brazilian elections. Oncethere was an alternation in power,levels of economic unpredictabilitycaused by elections decreased. Oncevoters and investors had an opportu-nity to live under distinct partisangovernments, more information andexperience about the different coali-tions that had ruled the countryduring the past 12 years enhanced thestability and predictability of the poli-

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tical system.As elections become nor-mal events in Brazilian history, withcandidates’ positions more clearlydefined and parties more institutiona-

lized, in all likelihood elections willpromote less economic turbulence.Brazil seems to be heading in thatdirection.

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3. ConclusionThe preceding statement about

the predictability of the Brazilian politi-cal system might seem contradictory towhat was mentioned before about theuncertainty of electoral outcomes, but infact it is not.The uncertainty about elec-toral outcomes, which is the essence ofdemocracy for Adam Przeworski (1985),

and the lack of economic instabilitygenerated by such uncertainty is furtherevidence of the growing strength of Bra-zilian democracy. Even in uncertainelections,with two strong candidates andwith marked reversals of expectationsand momentum during the campaign,the economy remained impermeable toelectoral instability.

Figura 2. Exchange rates, interest and unemployment rates, plus inflation from January 2002 to October 2006

in Brazil. Data were obtained at http://www.ipeadata.gov.br/. The exchange rate is the Taxa de câmbio - R$ /

US$ - comercial - venda - média - R$ - BCB Boletim/BP, the interest rate is Taxa de juros - Over / Selic - (%

a.m.) - BCB Boletim/M.Finan., the unemployment rate is Taxa de desemprego - aberto - RMSP - (%) - Seade

e Dieese/PED and the inflation rate is the IGP-M - (% a.m.) - FGV/Conj. Econômica.

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Such a situation is only possibleafter there has been alternation in power,a defining trait of the 2006 Brazilianelections. The comparison and contrastbetween the PT and PSDP administra-tions that ruled the country for the past12 years actually was a decisive factor inthe electoral outcome.Voters comparedand decided that the PT administrationdeserved more time in power.They wereable to weigh the performance of thetwo groups in power and chose betweenthem in a campaign in which there wasan abundance of information aboutseveral aspects of the Brazilian economicand political system. The fact that thetwo main political groups are familiar tothe population and investors, that theirproposals are well established and thatthey increasingly build policy reputa-tions, increases the transparency of theBrazilian political system and, conse-quently, its predictability.

The Achilles heel of this electoralperiod and of Brazilian governance ove-rall has been the problem of corruption.Lula’s government undeniably has beeninvolved in one scandal after another.The list of accusations and evidenceagainst the government is endless.Alck-min stressed this aspect ad nauseum inhis campaign. It did have an impact inthe first round of the election, showingthat the Brazilian voter does not turn ablind-eye to the issue. The “dossier”scandal reminded voters of all the pre-vious corruption events, and that costLula a first round victory.

However, when the secondround ocurred, voters seemed satisfiedwith Lula’s arguments that he castiga-ted those involved and would do soagain in the future, no matter who isaffected, ally or foe. Hence, it is not thatvoters ignored the corruption accusa-

tions, they did not.They were probablysatisfied with the explanations offeredby the Lula administration. Further-more, once this issue was exhausted,voters weighted the achievements ofLula’s administration against those ofthe PSDB rule from 1994 to 2002, and60% opted in favor of the former.Apparently, retrospective economicvoting prevailed and voters rewardedthe administration they thought per-formed better.

Future studies should contrasthow the above factors-- campaignevents and rhetoric, tolerance towardscorruption and economic retrospectivevoting, both sociotropic as well as poc-ketbook-- explain the electoral outco-me and volatility.

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Soares, Gláucio Ary Dillon. 2000.“Em busca da racionalidade perdida: algunsdeterminantes do voto no Distrito Fede-ral.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais,15:43, 05-23.

Spanakos, Anthony and Renno,Lucio.2006.“Elections and Economic Turbu-lence in Brazil: Candidates,Voters and Inves-tors.” Latin America Politics and Society. 48:4.

Stokes, Susan. 2001. Public Supportfor Market Reforms in New Democracies,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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