Cardoso Is Overwhelming Favorite As Brazil Polls Open
Dow Jones Newswires
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)--Brazil may be facing its worst economic crisis
since the country went broke in 1982, but President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso remained the clear favorite as voters prepared to vote Sunday in
national elections.
Cardoso, who led Brazil into a time of stagnation and record
unemployment, has promised spending cuts and more taxes if re-elected.
And all polls have indicated the 67-year-old sociologist has enough
support to win another four-year term on Sunday, when Brazilians also will
choose 27 governors, all 513 federal deputies, a third of the 81-seat
Senate and 1,045 state legislators.
A survey conducted last week by the prestigious Ibope polling institute
gave Cardoso 47 percent of the vote to 24 percent for Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva of the leftist Workers Party. The survey of 3,000 people nationwide
had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT) and close at 5 p.m. (2000 GMT),
but anyone waiting in line at closing time will be allowed to vote.
Lula voted early in Sao bernardo do Campo, an industrial suburb of Sao
Paulo where he worked for years in an auto plant. Cardoso was to vote
later in Sao Paulo.
In Rio, the sun came out after days of rain and lines formed early outside
voting stations. As usual, a ban on last-minute campaigning near polls was
widely ignored, and campaign workers waved party flags and handed out
leaflets.
Voting is compulsory for Brazilians between 18 and 70.
Although elections were expected to be peaceful, army troops were
stationed in nine states, in districts with high Indian populations or a history
of land conflicts. A ban on liquor sales was in effect in most states. |
