Brazil: The PT sits pretty

With President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s personal approval rating at an all-time high of 77.7%, according to a Sensus poll in September, his government’s approval rating at 68.8%, GDP growth of 6% over the twelve months through June and urban unemployment down to 7.6% in August, it is hardly surprising that his Worker’s Party (PT) and its allies look set to win the October 5 mayoral elections in most of Brazil’s largest cities.  Growth of the government coalition is likely to extend nationwide.

Although Brazilian local elections involve local issues and disputes, the recent experience of the PT shows that control over the national executive usually strengthens a party locally. When Lula won the presidency in 2002, the PT’s electoral support was heavily concentrated in the South and Southeast, and the party elected mayors in only 187 of Brazil’s 5,564 municipalities. Two years later, on the back of strong growth, the party elected 411 mayors.

The latest polls suggest that local elections will be very competitive in Brazil’s five largest cities (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza). However, the PT and its allies are well positioned to dispute a run-off in most cases, and the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo predicts that the party will win or reach a run-off in 36 of the 79 largest municipalities.  The PMDB, which is the largest party in Lula’s coalition, has candidates ranked first or second in the polls in 22 municipalities of this group.

Thanks to Lula’s strong popularity among voters, the election of party colleagues and allies in major cities may help pave the way to strengthening the PT’s 2010 presidential prospects, although in the absence of an obvious internal successor to Lula, competition among PT allies for the presidential candidacy may be strong. If the government can expand its base nationwide -- and if internal demand and commodity exports can dent the impact of the world financial crisis -- the centre-right opposition will struggle to increase its representation in Congress and take the presidency back in two years time.