Weekly Report - 04 October 2005

In the first round of elections for the top job in the lower chamber Rebelo, of the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB), tied with José Thomaz Nonô, of the Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), at 182 votes apiece - a measure of their scant core support in a chamber of 513 members. To secure the run-off the government pulled out all the stops and resorted to the old-style 'physiocratic' practices of allocating funds to projects in the constituencies of wooed congressmen, as well as to the ministries in the hands of allied parties (which were also assured of a quota of posts in state firms). It has been estimated that the operation may have cost R$1.5bn (US$673m). As Nonô put it: 'The government threw in all it had, plus all it didn't have.' The result: 258 votes for Rebelo versus 243 for Nonô.

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