|
The Presidential Election of 1989
The 1989 presidential election, the first direct presidential election
since 1960, was established by the 1988 constitution. The 1988 municipal
elections were a preview of the 1989 elections for the PMDB,
the nation's largest party, which lost in most cities with a population
of more than 100,000. Leonel Brizola's PDT
(Democratic Labor Party) and Lula's Workers'
Party made considerable gains, as voters made plain their rejection
of parties associated with the Sarney government.
As a result of more lenient legislation, twenty-two parties qualified
candidates for the presidency in 1989. The PRN (Party of National
Reconstruction) was hastily organized by a questionable takeover
of the Youth Party (Partido da Juventude--PJ) to launch the candidacy
of Alagoas governor Fernando
Collor de Mello, who had been elected by the PMDB in 1986, and
had a brief flirtation with the PSDB
in late 1988. Six of the major candidates were closely associated
with the Sarney period or with the Big Center in the ANC (National
Constituent Assembly).
By June 1989, Collor, aided by numerous television appearances,
had close to 50 percent of voter preference. His other advantages
in this election included his antiparty and antiestablishment posture;
his being relatively unknown politically; a huge war chest of campaign
funds, efficiently collected by campaign treasurer, Paulo Cesar
Farias; a fleet of fifteen Lear jets at his disposal for campaigning;
a sophisticated campaign organization; and his good communication
and oratory skills, acquired while working at the family television
station in Maceió.
In the first round of voting, Collor received 28.5 percent of the
votes and Lula, 16.1 percent, slightly edging out Brizola in a close
third (see table 22, Appendix). In the second round, Lula managed
to pull ahead of Collor in the polls by some 5 percent in the last
ten days of the campaign. However, because of Collor's negative
campaign attacks against Lula, the election swung in Collor's favor
by a 5.7 percent margin (see table 23, Appendix). Collor's geographic
vote distribution was very similar to that of the PDS (Democratic
Social Party)--the smaller the city, the larger Collor's proportion
of the vote.
Data as of April 1997 |
|
