What repercussions will the recent protests have on the 2014 elections? A poll released this week by CNT shows that Dilma Rousseff remains in the lead, but with only a third of the vote, while Marina Silva secures 20%, followed by Aécio Neves with 15%, and Eduardo Campos at the bottom with 7,4%. It's a gradual process. Thus, Dilma could still be re-elected, with some difficulty, but the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) would be out of the final round for the first time since 1989. But everything can change.
Things may change, but there are new parameters: Dilma has little more than the PT's minimum support. The additional votes, which since the 2002 campaign allowed a succession of PT victories, are gone. Marina may only have a slight surge in popularity. She doesn't offend, she adds to the vote instead of attacking, and her discourse is the closest to street demonstrations. But her party is, partly out of conviction, partly out of sheer fragility, not solid enough to ensure a good performance in 2014 – especially because, according to conventional wisdom, it needs platforms in the states, that is, as I have already stated here, it needs to ensure governability before, not after, the elections. Eduardo Campos may well withdraw, because I don't know if he's interested in running for less than ten percent of the vote; that could compromise future projects. That leaves Aécio.
At this moment, if Marina is Dilma's moral challenger, because she combines all the attributes to propose a different direction for the country, Aécio is her political challenger. He may be behind her – and that's normal, given the prominence Marina has achieved – but he has the governors, mayors, and parliamentarians who support an electoral campaign. When dreams and utopias give way to the mundane aspects of politics, the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) will advance in the polls. The time of wear and tear is working in their favor. They just need to avoid major mistakes – and we've already seen that Aécio won't make them. He may fail, but he shouldn't err. Let me explain: Serra erred, due to his aggressiveness. Aécio was slow to take positions, he hasn't yet projected himself as a serious presidential candidate, but the restriction on him doesn't go beyond "yet," which, for a young and vibrant politician, isn't a major problem.
So, when it comes to seeing who won and who lost with the change in the political landscape since the day after Valentine's Day, it's fair to say: Dilma and the PT lost, and although they can recover, they'll have to work hard; Marina wins, but what in theater is called a "succès d'estime," a critical success, which doesn't necessarily translate into audience success: it's moral victory; and the PSDB wins.
That's curious. Of the four presidential candidates I mentioned, Marina Silva appeared most frequently, followed by Dilma Rousseff, who couldn't remain silent when her government and party were called into question. But the potential political beneficiary of the crisis is precisely – just like Eduardo Campos – the one who spoke the least, perhaps because she had the least to say, about the popular outcry.
Now, what's interesting is that both Marina and Aécio emphasize the need for a new agenda for the country, a post-Bolsa Família agenda, as he called it. Indeed, the most popular PT programs, this Bolsa Família and the ProUni program, are emergency measures against poverty and social injustice; now, what will the country be like after it emerges from the emergency? When the PT's policies – precisely – have led Brazil to normality, to social health, what will the candidates have to propose? Here, it seems to me, lies the almost fatal question posed to each of the aspirants to the presidency.
Even the failure on this issue harms, rather than helps, Dilma. While it's true that the very poor and destitute decreased from 100 million to 50 million during Lula's government, the problem is that the tens of millions remaining are the most difficult to lift out of extreme poverty. Therefore, the PT's agenda hasn't become obsolete. Eradicating poverty remains necessary. But the fate of a quarter of Brazilians is no longer at stake. For the others, new agendas are needed. Aécio proposes the creation of new jobs thanks to the private sector. Marina uses the ambiguity of the word "sustainable"—which originated in the context of environmental issues but can be applied to everything, even the economic sustainability of a company, which, by itself, has nothing in common with ecology—to suggest a radical revision of the economy and society. She is the most utopian—and most intellectualized—candidate, party (or Network). But, in the meantime, Dilma has to formulate her proposal for the "day after" poverty, while at the same time she needs to continue eradicating it. A double workload...
To make matters more difficult, her predecessors left clear and popular marks. FHC concluded the fight against inflation begun by Itamar Franco. Lula turned Brazilian politics upside down with social inclusion. But what is Dilma's mark? Even her strongest initiatives, such as the reduction in interest rates, bring serious criticism. We are in that difficult moment where any movement of the blanket exposes more to the cold than it protects from the heat. Proposals as different from each other as the plebiscite and the Mais Médicos program generate negative effects from all sides. Is it a communication problem, as Jânio de Freitas astutely observed? Or is it deeper: a problem of conception? It is not clear what the government intends. And the inertia of things, which until mid-June favored re-election, now subjects her to a relentless bombardment. Dilma's good fortune is that she has some time – not much, but perhaps enough, if she shows sufficient "virtù" – to design a mark to apply to things.