Re-election's bumpy road
June 21, 2014
Everything went smoothly, just the way Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff likes it. The decision had actually already been made in May, but on Saturday (21.06.2014) it became official. Rousseff was named the "Partido dos Trabalhadores" (Workers' Party, PT) candidate for president. A poll issued by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics shows her with a 39 percent to 21 percent lead over her closest challenger, Aecio Neves.
The months leading up to the election on October 5, however, promise to be far more difficult than winning her party's nomination. Rousseff's popularity has been declining this past year, and in recent months she has faced harsh criticism.
The 67-year-old is not only the first female president Brazil ever had. She is also the first head of state to have been publically vilified during the opening match of a World Cup soccer tournament. Public scorn hit Rousseff with full force when Brazil played against Croatia last week. People in the Sao Paulo stadium booed, jeered and insulted her.
Life made her tough
Brazil has spent just over a week arguing about the issue: Was the verbal harassment a sign of misogyny? Is the lack of respect towards an elected official a national disgrace? Or is this kind of vulgarity simply what happens in soccer stadiums and not even heads of states are exempt from it?
Despite being visibly angered by the rude welcome, Rousseff put on her game face. "Insults will not intimidate me," she later told the local press. "In my life, I have endured things far worse than this, like the almost unbearable physical abuse. I will not be cowered."
Rousseff was tortured in 1970 at the hands of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. At the time, the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, she studied economics at the University of Belo Horizonte and joined a guerilla group named "Vanguardia Armada Revolucionaria Palmares" (Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard) in the late 60s.
From political prisoner to elected leader
Back then, it was unthinkable that Rousseff would govern the country 40 years later. But after unionist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the founding father of the Brazilian Workers' Party PT, was elected president in 2002, nothing and no one could stop her. First, Lula appointed Rousseff minister of energy. In 2005, he made her his chief of staff and hence the highest-ranking member of the Brazilian cabinet. When Silva was not allowed to run for a third term, he recommended her as a candidate. Rousseff and the PT won the 2010 elections in a run-off.
Even though Rousseff is considered a highly-skilled politician and dogmatist, Brazilians have been impressed by her strong-headedness. When she was diagnosed with lymphoma, she only took a short break. Only few weeks after the operation, Rousseff resumed traveling the country. She went on TV wearing a wig and provided insights into the challenges of chemotherapy.
Politically, with welfare programs and UN peacekeeping missions, Rousseff continued on the path her predecessor had paved. She did away with several clichés and setup Brazil as an influential player on the stage of international politics.
"Us" versus "them"
In retrospect however, her close ties to "Lula" did more harm than good.
"The legacy of Lula's pompous rule is like a lead weight," former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso wrote in a column in the Brazilian daily "O Globo." "PT's corruption scandals and populism have caused a moral crisis."
According to a recent survey by "Datafolha," especially higher-income earners are disappointed with Rousseff and her government.
"Today, there are two presidents in Brazil, a beloved and an unloved one," said political scientist Paulo Celso Pereira. The government has polarized society, he added, because by dwelling on the idea of "us" versus "them," it fueled the hostility between the two political sides.
With that, cases of corruption unsettling her government, the ongoing protests and a bad economic outlook, Rousseff has a tough time ahead of her. The presidential election on October 5, 2014, is only a few months away.