Brazil's presidential election is going to a runoff between President Dilma Rousseff and challenger Aecio Neves, the country's electoral authority confirmed on Sunday.The ruling left-of-center party has a sluggish economy and scandal in nation's oil industry to overcome. Like the Democrats in the US, they know how to play the scare card and have a good ground game to get voters to the polls.
An official running tally with 93.54 percent of ballots counted showed that 41.08 percent of valid votes had gone to Rousseff, 34.20 percent to Neves and 21.14 percent to third-place candidate Marina Silva.
Brazil's chief problem is slow growth, as IBD told us during the World Cup:
"The World Bank is predicting 1.5% GDP growth in Brazil this year.And that's the problem. There is not enough job creation and too much crony capitalism, i.e. corruption.
Since 2010 growth has averaged less than 2% annually.
Although much of Latin America has lost steam due to the weak international economy, Brazil's economy is one of the worst, trailing only Venezuela and Argentina."
According to Forbes, the cost of corruption is between1.4% to 2.3% of GDP. This is money that could be invested in public education, infrastructure and health care.
My guess is that the incumbent party will win the runoff. However, the country's problems require some forward looking leaders who understand that Brazil desperately needs a dose of free market capitalism and more autonomy for its very diverse regions. They need a Brazilian version of Reaganomics and a 10th Amendment!
P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
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