Candidates supportive of My House, My Life project prepare for televised debate

[Cearainvest]

Three people running for the Brazilian presidency are to partake in a televised debate tonight, at least two of which are planning to extend the Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life) project.

Dilma Rousseff - who is being backed by current leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - and Marina Silva were both recently reported to be in favour of continuing the programme, which provides affordable housing for low-income households.

They will be debating with the third presidential candidate, Jose Serra - representing the Social Democrat party, according to the Irish Times.

In a recent public opinion poll, Ms Rousseff was shown to be in the lead on 39 per cent, followed by Mr Serra with 34 per cent, while Ms Silva was being backed by seven per cent of respondents.

According to a recent report by Dow Jones Newswires, the latter - a green party candidate - intends to continue the macroeconomic policies that have been successful during Lula's rule, including the Minha Casa, Minha Vida affordable housing scheme.

Similarly, Reuters said that Ms Rousseff has pledged to keep running the programme and ensure the social and economic gains achieved under the current president are continued.

 

[debzor]

Dilma has greater support in NE Brazil with Serra winning in the south where he was the Governor of Sao Paulo. Both have very similar policies, broadly following President Lula and his predecessor. So, for the overseas investor, expect more of the same...

An opinion poll out today shows a greater difference between the candidates, with Dilma on 47% and Serra on 30%, followed by the also-rans, mainly in single figures.

Once the invalid votes are removed, Dilma is currently forecast to gain around 54% of the vote - an outright win in the first round. October 3rd is still some way off, though...

 

[JMBroad]

Well, the Minha Casa Minha Vida is hugely popular and Dilma is known as "Minha Casa Minha Dilma" as she championed the whole thing. Also, she's the figurehead for the Tupi oil well operation which is allegedly going to come online 3 months earlier than expected to the delight of the whole country.

Add to that the fact that Lula has just said in an interview that once he leaves office he's going to travel around Brazil and, if Dilma wins, he'll be travelling around Brazil on her behalf talking to people and looking at the things he did and giving her tips on what she can improve on.

I think the gap will probably widen.