BRASILIA, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Brazil's presidential contenders took to the airwaves on Tuesday with free advertisements in what may be opposition candidate Jose Serra's last chance to reverse a rapid slide in opinion polls.
The ruling party’s Dilma Rousseff raced to her biggest lead yet on Tuesday as a new poll showed her 16 percentage points ahead of Serra. It was the third poll in less than a week showing her with a decisive lead ahead of the Oct 3 vote, raising the chances she can avoid a second, run-off vote at the end of October. If she wins, she will become Brazil’s first woman president.
In a country where print media and Internet have a relatively low penetration, both sides believe the free TV and radio advertising that began on Tuesday can help them.
The TV exposure will introduce Rousseff to the 9 percent of voters who have still not heard of her and the nearly one-quarter who are not aware she is backed by hugely popular President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
For former Sao Paulo Governor Serra, who sometimes comes across as cold and aloof, the TV campaign is a chance to connect with voters and remind them of his vast executive experience compared to the relatively untested Rousseff.
Serra’s ads on Tuesday tried to showcase his managerial experience and give the often dour-faced 68-year-old a warmer, common touch. He was repeatedly referred to as "Ze," a common, casual nickname for people called Jose.
Serra steered clear of outright attacks against the Lula administration, saying simply that Brazil could do better in health, education, public security and transportation.
Rousseff, Lula’s former chief of staff, has benefited from a red-hot economy and the president’s enormous popularity to turn a 20 percentage point gap last December into an 8-11 point lead over Serra, who lost to Lula in 2002.
The Vox Populi poll released on Tuesday showed her with 45 percent support versus Serra’s 29 percent.
It is the second of three polls released in the past week, showing her with more than the 50 percent needed for a first-round victory if abstentions and blank votes are excluded, as they are in the election.
ROUSSEFF’S NEW LOOK
In her first TV slot, Rousseff was portrayed as compassionate and upbeat, part of her campaign’s attempt to "soften" her image as a tough, former left-wing activist.
Rousseff, 62, has undergone plastic surgery, ditched her spectacles, and hired a hair stylist to break with her image as a dull bureaucrat.
Lula’s expanded social welfare programs that have helped lift millions out of poverty were not a handout but an obligation of the state, Rousseff said, moments after she was pictured as a young mother cradling her daughter.
Lula, who has portrayed Rousseff as a mother of the nation with economic expertise and social concern, is taking a major role in her campaign and appeared prominently in her TV slot.
"I’m very happy to know I’ll hand over the presidential sash to a comrade of my party, a woman comrade," Lula said.
Rousseff’s TV slots are more than three minutes longer than Serra’s because her coalition has more seats in Congress.
She also has history on her side. Since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985, all presidential candidates who led opinion polls at the start of the TV campaign went on to win.
"The TV campaign has never altered the course of an election and everything suggests it won’t this year either," said Ricardo Guedes, head of polling firm Sensus.
Even though both Serra and Rousseff favor a strong government hand in the economy, neither is seen as breaking with mostly market-friendly policies that have ensured years of strong economic growth.
