SAO PAULO, Brazil—Brazil's opposition seems to have little chance of unseating President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in next month's election, but it is poised to keep control of two of the country's most influential states.
With less than two weeks until election day on Oct. 1, polls show Jose Serra and Aecio Neves running away with the governor races in Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, two states that have historically held sway over national politics in Brazil.
Both Serra and Neves are prominent members of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB, whose presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin lags far behind Lula in the race for the country's top job.
Retaining the governorships means the opposition can largely pursue its own social and economic agenda in the country's two most populous states, building a foundation for a stronger presidential bid in 2010.
The party had hoped that Alckmin, who had high approval ratings as governor of Sao Paulo state, would lead it back into the presidential palace this year. But Lula's folksy charisma has dwarfed Alckmin's bland political style, leaving many in the PSDB looking to the next election.
"Even if Lula wins, the PSDB is still going to wield political power, thanks to the fact that Serra and Aecio are going to win," Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula's predecessor as president and one of the founders of the PSDB, told Reuters.
"In these two states, we're going to put on a show, we're going to prioritize security and education, and we're going to show another path for Brazil," he added.
In Minas Gerais, a coffee producing state named after the gold and silver mines that enriched the Portuguese colonial rulers, the candidate from Lula's Workers' Party never appeared to have much of a chance of beating Neves, the incumbent.
Neves, who hails from one of the state's best-known political families, has overseen an economic boom in his first term as governor, making him hugely popular with voters.
A recent survey by pollster Datafolha showed Neves taking 75 percent of the votes in the first round, trouncing his closest rival, Nilmario Miranda of the Workers' Party, who had just 9 percent in the poll.
Eye on 2010
In Sao Paulo, an agricultural and industrial powerhouse whose economy is larger than Argentina's, the Workers' Party saw a chance to groom a possible successor to Lula in Aloizio Mercadante, a senator and former economics professor who is a rising star in the party.
But polls show that Mercadante has been hurt by voter disillusion with corruption scandals involving the Workers' Party, something Lula has largely managed to avoid by distancing himself from the party.
This weekend, allegations arose that the Workers' Party had attempted to buy information linking Serra to a kickback scheme over ambulance purchases when he was health minister in the previous administration. However, the accusations appeared to be doing as much damage to the Workers' Party as to Serra.
A poll before this scandal showed Mercadante with just 23 percent of the vote versus 47 percent for Serra, who would win the ballot outright once null and blank votes are discarded.
Mercadante also has less name recognition than Serra, who ran for president in 2002 and is one of Brazil's best-known politicians. Some analysts say the PSDB might have had a better chance at unseating Lula if Serra had run instead of Alckmin.
But Serra played his cards carefully, resigning as mayor of the city of Sao Paulo—South America's largest metropolis - to run for governor. That is a job that would position him to compete with Neves to become the PSDB's candidate for president in four years time.
"The Workers' Party doesn't have a strong candidate to run for president after Lula," said Rogerio Schmitt, a political analyst at Tendencias, a Sao Paulo consulting firm. "But the PSDB does with Serra and Aecio," he added. "We're probably going to see the opposition return to power in 2010."
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