After sowing contradiction, Marina reaps decline.
The biggest problem facing candidate Marina Silva, just 13 days before the October 5th election, is political; critical of the alliances forged by her predecessor Eduardo Campos, she now barely has state-level platforms to campaign on; throughout September, she made statements that were contradicted by her opponents and that she herself had to retract, such as the promise to deplete the pre-salt oil reserves; in terms of her image, she cried at the first sign of difficulty; then, she asked the people for "prayers"; judging by the numbers, this plan may be the final act of her waning candidacy.
Marco Damiani, 247 – More than in the polls, the biggest problem for candidate Marina Silva, 13 days before the October 5th election, lies in politics. From Datafolha to Ibope, confirmed this Tuesday, the 23rd, by the CNT/MDA survey, the PSB candidate is, in practice, the only one losing preferences and support in the central phase of the election. And in alarming doses. With high rejection rates, according to all surveys, and sharp drops in voting intentions with each release, Marina is now seeking to regain her lost humility. Yesterday, she asked the public for "prayers," avoiding confronting the objective issues that have arisen during the campaign. This move to resort to faith is part of the tactic defined by her campaign team, which intends to protect the candidate from the confrontation of ideas while waiting for the second round. In this second round, according to PSB/Rede strategists, Marina would have the same amount of time as her opponent, 15 minutes a day on television, and could then show her full potential.
The problem with this veritable ostrich tactic – the bird that buries its head in a hole as a way to escape its surrounding problems – is the rate at which Marina's electoral prestige is declining. Based on trends detected in all polls, she may simply not reach the second round. What seemed fair and agreed upon has radically changed in just two weeks.
In the new scenario, shaped by the drop of no less than 6 percentage points for the PSB candidate in the CNT/MDA poll released today, Marina is much closer to a final showdown with Aécio Neves of the PSDB for a spot in the second round than to challenging President Dilma Rousseff's leading position in the race. In this sense, the picture revealed by the survey showed, for the first time, Dilma overtaking her, by only one point, but an overtaking nonetheless, in the second-round simulation. It is worth remembering that, just over twenty days ago, the former minister appeared in the Datafolha poll with a ten-point lead over the candidate seeking re-election in the final phase of the contest.
Fewer resources to recover - To recover, the problem for Marina is that she now has far fewer resources than before. As soon as she took over Campos's position in the second half of August, the former senator sparked a major dissent within the PSB. Leaders who had previously trusted the former governor of Pernambuco left meetings shouting and hurling insults at the candidate's stance. Besides losing a good part of the party's leadership and base, Marina has also ceased to be, at this point, the novelty of the election. Emerging as the favorite as soon as she rose to the forefront of the electoral scene, she has not been able to stay above the second half of the 30% range in voting intentions. At this moment, she is already struggling to stay above 25%. However, the rate of her decline, at a rate of 3 to 6 points per week, depending on the poll, shows that it is very difficult to stop the movement that already resembles a free fall.
With her exclusivist stance, refusing the alliances that had been forged, one by one, over a whole year of political talks by Eduardo Campos, Marina lost support in crucial states like São Paulo and Minas Gerais. She is practically alone in Rio de Janeiro and has difficulty maneuvering in the Northeast. Her native region, the North, as is well known, does not have the electoral weight to decide a national contest.
Tears are allowed, but when, two weeks ago, Marina shed tears because of a verbal clash with former president Lula, the scene seemed strange. After all, shortly before, in debates hosted by the Bandeirantes and Globo networks, Marina herself made a point of demonstrating a firm and, for many, triumphalist stance, as if she already felt like the president-elect, such was the contempt she showed towards her opponents.
In her government program, however, Marina demonstrated her Achilles' heel. Coordinated by Itaú bank heiress Neca Setúbal, the program dedicated only two lines to the pre-salt oil reserves – admittedly the country's greatest natural wealth in current times. Introducing a thorny issue into the debates, the candidate began to defend the independence of the Central Bank, while her economists, such as Eduardo Gianetti, spread neoliberal ideas that linked her economic ideas to the PSDB's program.
As the polls show, which also record Aécio's growth, the public is preferring the original to the reproduction. In the next surveys, it only takes Aécio gaining about three points, which is not impossible, and Marina losing another three, which seems quite likely, for both to reach a situation of a technical tie in the race for second place. President Dilma, meanwhile, is for this crucial moment leaving the spotlight of attacks to glimpse, once again, the chance of winning in the first round.
In fact, Marina Silva's presence changed the 2014 presidential election – but not exactly as she imagined.