Brazil Weighs Competing Visions for the Future

When Brazilians head to the polls for a presidential runoff on Oct. 26, they will choose between two competing visions of how to manage the country's economic and political challenges. With former frontrunner Marina Silva finishing in a surprise distant third place in the election's first round Oct. 5, voters will now either re-elect President Dilma Rousseff and her Worker's Party or put opposition candidate Aecio Neves and his Social Democracy Party of Brazil into power. The incumbent candidate represents a continuation of state-centric policies that have elevated millions of Brazilians but that are facing new difficulties. Her challenger represents an era of structural reforms that stabilized the country and set the stage for its recent growth. Regardless of who wins, the next president will need to deal with popular pressure, particularly from a growing middle class, to improve social services, keep inflation under control and combat corruption, without undermining the economic gains of the past decade.