Lula's allies sweep Senate race, governorships

Oct 5, 2010, 13:23 GMT

   Brasilia - The coalition that backs Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is set to have a two-thirds majority in the Senate and won 12 governorships in the first round of voting, results showed Monday.

Sunday's general election was however not a complete success for the ruling- party camp. Its presidential candidate, Dilma Rousseff, won the first round of voting, but still must to face off against social democrat Jose Serra in a runoff October 31.

Lula's Workers' Party (PT) and its allies are to have 55 Senate seats beginning in January - up from their current 39, while the opposition goes from 33 down to 22 seats and independents shrink from 10 to four, according to a vote count from Sunday's legislative election. Lula's allies swept the board Sunday: Of 54 Senate seats being chosen, they won 40.

   The relevance of the balance of power in the Senate will depend on the outcome of the presidential runoff between Rousseff and Serra.

   If Rousseff wins the presidency, she will have a very friendly Senate to work with, in line with the wishes of the outgoing Lula. However, if Serra were to win, he would have to govern in an unfavourable legislative setting.

   Rousseff's leftist PT increased its own share from 11 to 15 senators. It is set to be the second-largest in the upper house of the Brazilian Congress, behind its main ally, the centrist Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), with 20 seats.

   The opposition led by the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB), whose presidential candidate Serra managed to hold Rousseff to a runoff, and by the conservative party Democratas (DEM) suffered a historic defeat in the Senate race.

   The PSDB, which currently has 14 senators, will from January have only 10, while the DEM went from 18 seats to seven.

No details were immediately available as to the make-up of the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, for which pre-electoral opinion polls had also given Lula and his allies a comfortable lead.

The ruling coalition that backs Lula and Rousseff also carried 12 of the 18 state governorships races that were decided in Sunday's voting.

The PT got back the leadership of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and kept Bahia, Sergipe and Acre. Its allies of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), in turn, comfortably won Ceara, Pernambuco, Piaui and Espirito Santo.

   The centrist PMDB, the PT's main ally, kept Rio de Janeiro - Brazil's third most powerful state - and also won Maranhao, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul.

However, the social democratic opposition will keep command of Brazil's two most powerful states in both political and economic terms, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. They also won Parana and Tocantins, while their allies of the DEM are to govern the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Santa Catarina.

   The state of Amazonas elected a governor of the tiny Party of National Mobilization (PMN).

The election for governor is set to be defined in a runoff in the remaining eight states and in the federal district of Brasilia.