Brazilian Vote Forces Lula Into Runoff

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva fell short of the votes needed Sunday to avoid a runoff election this month, official results showed.

With 98% of the ballots counted, Lula had 48.8% of the vote compared with 41.4% for his principal challenger, Geraldo Alckmin, the conservative former governor of Sao Paulo state, electoral officials said.

New allegations of electoral dirty tricks appeared to cost Lula crucial support in recent days, experts said, turning a comfortable majority into a showing of less than 50%, and triggering a runoff election Oct. 29 with Alckmin, who had a surprisingly strong showing.

The unexpected setback could set up a contentious month of campaigning as Lula counterattacks and a united opposition seeks further evidence of campaign irregularities by the ruling Workers’ Party.

Lula, whose rise from impoverished factory hand to chief executive of Latin America’s largest nation won him global acclaim four years ago, had seemed assured of a smooth reelection until a scandal emerged last month to blemish anew the reputation of his Workers’ Party.

Lula’s 59% showing in polls sank after the “bloodsucker scandal,” in which members of Alckmin’s party have been linked to alleged kickbacks for the sale of overpriced ambulances to city governments, metamorphosed into a purported plot by Lula’s political camp designed to tarnish Alckmin and his Brazilian Social Democracy Party.

Lula has not been directly implicated in the latest scandal, but it has forced him to dismiss several top aides, including his campaign manager.

“I’m confident we are going to win this election today,” Lula told reporters Sunday after voting in the industrial suburb of Sao Bernardo do Campo.

Allegations have emerged that operatives of his party were involved in an effort to pay about $700,000 for a dossier of recordings, photos and documents from a family at the center of the “bloodsucker” scandal. The dossier is said to be damaging to Alckmin’s party.

Newspapers here ran photos of some of the stacks of money seized by federal police and purported to be the payment for the incriminating material.

“Ethics will defeat corruption,” Alckmin said as he cast his ballot in Sao Paulo. “Lula has had his opportunity. A new team can do more for Brazil.”

The dossier episode is the latest scandal to batter the image of Lula, 60, who repeatedly denounced Brazil’s ingrained corruption in the lead-up to his historic victory in 2002, his fourth run at the presidency.

The string of corruption allegations has clearly drained some of Lula’s support, especially among middle-class and elite voters here in Brazil’s financial and industrial capital. Many also were upset that Lula skipped a presidential debate last week.

“Lula managed to become just like the other candidates,” complained Augusto Silveira, 28, a psychologist here. “He seems like the others, hungry for power and failing to keep his promises to the people.”

But the burly, bearded president remains popular among the struggling urban and rural population. His signature “Zero Hunger” program guarantees about $23 a month to poor families, providing a survival cushion in a nation with wide disparities of income and wealth.

“I know everything he is accused of, but I will vote for Lula,” said Jose Carlos de Oliveira, 63, a retired professor. “At least he is doing something for the poorest, which those who ruled Brazil for 500 years never did.”

Lula, the son of impoverished farmers from Brazil’s northeast, became an auto worker in the industrial belt here after his family migrated, following the path of many rural Brazilians. He rose to the position of outspoken union leader and national political figure before being elected Brazil’s first leftist president.

When asked “Are you a communist?” Lula famously replied: “No, I am a machine worker.”

The former assembly line worker helped defeat a U.S.-sponsored free-trade zone proposal last year in a protest against U.S. farm subsidies, and he has been a critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Unlike Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, Lula has sought close ties with Washington and has generally avoided strident criticism of the United States. He has governed as a moderate and won praise on Wall Street and in Washington at a time when leftist politicians often antagonistic toward the U.S. are on the rise in South America.

In doing so, Lula has faced criticism on the left from those who say he has betrayed his socialist ideals and caved in to mainstream capitalism.

During the campaign, Lula pledged to bolster social programs, raise the minimum wage, improve educational opportunities for the youth and continue Brazil’s steady growth.

Alckmin, a doctor and a longtime politician, has promised to cut taxes, lower interest rates, clean up corruption and streamline the federal bureaucracy. But he lacks Lula’s national recognition and charisma.

Presidential candidate Heloisa Helena, a senator who was purged from Lula’s party after criticizing his economic policies as too conservative, was getting less than 10% of the vote.

Also at stake were 27 governorships, 27 Senate seats and all 513 seats in the lower house of Congress.

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patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

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Times special correspondent Marcelo Soares contributed to this report.