Brazil's Rousseff rebounds in presidential poll, but Silva still in front

Two opinion poll surveys published on Wednesday showed Dilma Rousseff (pictured above) picking up voter support, but not by enough points to bridge the gap built up by late entrant to the race, Marina Silva.

The separate surveys, one by the polling institute Ibope and the other by Datafolha, showed that Rousseff, of the Workers' Party (PT), had narrowed the lead in both the first-round runoff as well as a possible second-round contest.

Rousseff enjoyed a boost of three percentage points for the first round on October 5, involving multiple candidates. The top three contenders for that vote are Rousseff, Silva and Aecio Neves of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).

That increase saw Rousseff go from 34 percent to 37 percent, putting her in second place behind Silva, of the Brazilian Socialist Party, who went up a notch from 45 percent to 46 percent. Neves came in third on 15 percent, down four points.

In a direct run-off, the poll found that Silva would still retain a comfortable margin over Rousseff - winning 46 percent compared with 36 percent.

The polling improvement for Rousseff came after she went on the offensive against her main rival in a television debate on Monday, calling into question Silva's ability to pay for campaign promises as the country appeared to be slipping back into recession.

Swift political turnaround

Silva was named last month as the replacement for previous candidate Eduardo Campos, who had been killed in a plane crash. Her selection radically altered the political landscape, with the PSB enjoying a surge in support that saw it overtake Rousseff's PT and threaten the ruling party's 12-year hold on power.

An added dimension to Silva's voting-winning potential has been her own remarkable story of social mobility. Born into a family of poor rubber tappers in the Amazon, she only learned to read and write at the age of 16 before embarking on an astonishing political rise, serving as an environment minister with the PT.

After her time as a minister - during which she clashed with Rousseff - Silva broke with the PT and surprised pundits when she came third in a 2010 presidential campaign for the Green Party - winning nearly 20 percent of votes.

The 56-year-old tried to form her own party for the 2014 election, Sustainability Network, but this was ruled ineligible by Brazil's electoral court for failing to collect enough registration signatures. Since then, she had campaigned with Campos as his running mate.

In a separate poll by the Datafolha on Wednesday, Rousseff also made up ground in projected polling - rising to 41 percent in the runoff compared with Silva's 49 percent.

rc/lw (dpa, Reuters)