Brazil voters jaded by ruling party's corruption

When Brazil's Workers' Party (PT) won a historic presidential election four years ago, millions of people took to the streets to herald what the winning candidate memorably declared "the triumph of hope over fear."

But now, with the PT having shown itself to be every bit as corrupt as their predecessors, Brazilians feel they are left with little choice in the Oct. 1 vote.

"If you ask me which of the candidates have the qualities I am looking for then I'd say none of them," says small business owner José Carlos Vieira, summing up the helplessness felt by many of Brazil's 126 million voters. "We don't have much of a choice. Today we have to vote for the least awful of the candidates."

Yet at least some voters are trying to make a statement, threatening to vote for fringe candidates. Others, however, say the answer is to vote for no one and to annul their votes in protest.

In several polls released over the last few weeks as many as 11 percent of respondents said they would annul their mandatory vote for president, making it the third most popular option behind Lula and his main rival Geraldo Alckmin of the PSDB.

Frustration with the government has become widespread. When President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took power in 2003, after eight years of rule by the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, Brazilians were voting for economic, political, and – most of all – social changes long promised by Lula. Today, the economy is healthier than ever and his government has pumped billions into social programs that have helped the country's poor.

But Lula did not break with the past as he promised, and with his government mired in one corruption scandal after another, many voters don't know where to turn.

In races for state governor, polls showed that 13 percent in São Paulo and 17 percent in Rio de Janeiro said they would vote for none of the declared candidates. Although Brazil's list system means there are few polls for the concurrent parliamentary elections, voters and experts agree the percentage of annulled votes will almost certainly be higher for those races.

With more than 100 of the 513 deputies implicated in the latest corruption scandal, and disgust so widespread that even the president of the Congressional Ethics Committee classed this Congress "the worst in the country's history," few have faith in those running for congressional seats.

"The credibility in the political system is damaged," says João Augusto de Castro Neves, an analyst at the Brazilian Institute for Political Studies. "But confidence in the Chamber of Deputies is even more damaged than that of the presidency. This scandal is ongoing and some candidates have even withdrawn from the race. It is very worrying because people see so many candidates involved that they don't know who to vote for."

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