RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil's stock market and currency tumbled Monday on signs that President Dilma Rousseff is making up ground on her main challenger less than a week before the country's elections.
The nation's benchmark Bovespa index fell 4.52 percent on the day, while the real slipped 1.67 percent against the dollar to 2.457 from Friday's close -- its lowest level in six years.
Investors were discouraged by Datafolha poll numbers released Friday showing Rousseff 13 percentage points ahead in Sunday's first round of voting -- and ahead in voter intentions for an eventual run-off for the first time.
She is nevertheless in a statistical dead heat with environmentalist Marina Silva for a possible October 26 run-off, and thus came out swinging Sunday in the next-to-last presidential debate.
The leftist incumbent -- Brazil's first woman president -- hit out at Silva for flip-flopping, citing her repeated party shifts, from Rousseff's own Workers Party (PT) to the Greens and eventually the Socialists.
"You have changed party four times in three years. Governing requires firmness and courage, along with adopting clear positions," Rousseff said as she appealed to some 20 percent of the electorate that is still undecided.
Rousseff is looking to avoid a run-off, in which Silva -- likely to pick up votes from those supporting minor candidates in the first round -- is tipped to do well.
A poll by the MDS Institute saw support for Rousseff rising 4.4 points to 40.4 percent, with Silva's backing down 2.2 percent to 25.2 percent. Aecio Neves, who polled third, was up 2.2 percent at 19.8.
Significantly, the poll saw the pair no longer in a second round dead heat with Rousseff projected to take 47.7 percent to 38.7 percent for Silva in an October 26 run-off.
After the stock market slumped, Wellington Ramos, analyst with Austin Rating, told AFP that "investors are leaving Brazil" with Rousseff looking set for victory.
"The market is not happy at the prospect of a second term for Dilma Rousseff owing to various factors such as excessive intervention in public businesses and expansionist budgetary policy preventing inflation targets from being met," Ramos said.
- Rousseff's 'humble' pitch -
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A total of 142.8 million voters will cast ballots next Sunday to decide the next leader of the huge South American nation, the world's seventh-biggest economy.
The 66-year-old Rousseff, handpicked by charismatic predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had been expected to win a second mandate -- until Silva crashed the party.
Silva, a former environment minister and an evangelist who would become Brazil's first black leader, became the Socialist Party candidate only after the August death in an air crash of Eduardo Campos, her former running mate.
In Sunday's debate, Rousseff presented herself as a more experienced and reliable candidate, launching a "humble" appeal for voter support.
Silva -- who left the government in 2008 after five years -- meanwhile says she represents a "new politics" in a country where voters are weary of party politicking.
She accused Rousseff of presiding over soaring crime and neglecting green issues.
The pair also disagreed on financing for major projects from publicly owned banks.
In last week's Datafolha poll, social democrat Aecio Neves -- trailing Silva by nine points, and with seemingly little hope of dislodging her from second place -- used his airtime to attack the government over an alleged kickbacks scandal surrounding state-owned oil giant Petrobras.
A former director of the firm has alleged that dozens of politicians -- mainly in Rousseff's PT or its coalition allies -- benefited from huge sweeteners on Petrobras deals.
Rousseff -- who chaired the Petrobras board at the time of the alleged kickbacks, but says she had no knowledge of any wrongdoing -- insisted she would not sweep corruption under the carpet.
"In all my life, I had zero tolerance for corruption," she told her rivals as Neves, whose supporters could potentially bolster Silva in a run-off, made Rousseff his target.
"I am the only candidate who has presented concrete proposals to tackle corruption," Rousseff said.
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