142 million Brazilians to vote in Presidential elections
October 5, 2014, 6:04 am

New polls out on Saturday afternoon show the race to meet incumbent Dilma Rousseff (seen here, waving to supporters on Saturday) in a second round will be hotly contested [Image: gov.br]

New polls out on Saturday afternoon show the race to meet incumbent Dilma Rousseff in a second round will be hotly contested. The largest survey, from Datafolha, shows Rousseff with 44 per cent of the vote, Marina Silva dropping to 24 per cent, and Aecio Neves overtaking her, with 26 per cent. The latter two are still technically tied, as there is a 2 per cent margin of error.

Some 30,000 troops will be deployed to 250 cities across Brazil to ensure smooth voting and to provide logistical assistance, including transporting ballot boxes and election officials in remote areas, the Brazilian Defense Ministry said. A Central Command and Control Center, initially established to guarantee security during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, will be used during the elections, the ministry said.

Voting in Brazil is compulsory for those aged 18-70, meaning 142.8 million people are expected at the polls, according to Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court.

According to electoral law, a presidential or gubernatorial candidate must garner more than 50 per cent of the vote to win, otherwise the top two candidates from the first round will face a run-off on October 26.

Some 530,000 electronic voting booths will be set up around the country, open from 8 am till 5 pm.

This year for the first time a biometric identifying system, considered more effective in combating fraud, will be installed in 762 cities, covering 23.8 million Brazilians (16.7 per cent of the electorate). For the 2018 general elections, all eligible voters are expected to be covered by the system.

Brazil is the third BRICS member to go to the polls this year after India and South Africa.

With promises to revive economic growth that has fallen to a decade low of below 5 per cent, India’s lead opposition party, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party had ousted the ruling Congress in elections held in May this year.

In South Africa, however, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) batted away opposition from the far left and overcame a wave of populist anger over widespread poverty and unemployment, to ride to victory in South Africa’s fifth post-apartheid election in May.

TBP and Agencies