Former Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva is endorsing the more conservative challenger against incumbent President Dilma Rousseff in the runoff on 26 October.  This comes after center-right candidate Aecio Neves promised to adopt some of Silva’s issues in his manifesto.

These include land reform, the demarcation of indigenous lands, the rights of rural communities, and environmental concerns.  These were important to Silva, the formerly illiterate daughter of poor rubber tappers in the Amazon.  But despite these noble goals, Silva’s own candidacy was undone by her trust in more conservative free market ideas, as well as her opposition to gay marriage rights.  Too “green” for the right and too socially conservative for the Left, Silva finished with about 21 percent in the first round earlier this month, a negligible improvement over her numbers in 2008 .

There is no love lost between Silva and President Rousseff, who dismissed the endorsement as “understandable”.

“She is closer to the economic program of Aecio (Neves) than to the social program of my government,” said Dilma, who visibly bristled when sharing the debate stage with Silva, who was environment minister in the Workers' Party before defecting to the Greens.

Rousseff's social program began 12 years ago with the election Dilma’s Workers’ Party predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.  Their policies are credited with lifting 30 million Brazilians out of poverty.  And the UN last month removed Brazil from the world hunger map because of advances in the past decade.

But there is still dissatisfaction with the current government and perceived corruption, as evidenced by last year’s massive protests against the amount of money being spent on the World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics.  People would rather spend that money on Education, Healthcare, and Infrastructure.

The latest poll shows Aecio leading Dilma in the runoff, but there is still two weeks to go and the incumbent is very popular with low income Brazlians.