Brazil Centrist Out in Front in Presidential Race : South America: The nation is completing its transition from military dictatorship.

Brazilians voted Wednesday in the country’s first popular presidential election since 1960, and unofficial exit polls assured centrist candidate Fernando Collor de Mello of reaching a December runoff. Two left-of-center candidates vied for the other runoff position.

The Superior Electoral Tribunal said it would not announce any nationwide vote computations until today.

Exit polls by four private firms gave Collor, 40, a solid lead over other candidates, with 30% to 33.6% of several thousand votes sampled in cities and towns around the country.

The four surveys showed socialist Luis Inacio da Silva, known as Lula, in second place with 17% to 19% of the votes. In one of the surveys, left-leaning populist Leonel Brizola was tied with Lula for second, and in the others Brizola was a close third.

Farther behind was center-leftist Mario Covas, followed by conservative Paulo Maluf. No one else among the 21 candidates took more than 4% of the votes sampled.

If the official vote count for second place is close, the outcome may not be known until Nov. 27, when the complete computations are due. The runoff is scheduled for Dec. 17.

As Brazil completes its long transition from military dictatorship, the nation of 145 million people emerges as the second most populous democracy in the hemisphere after the United States.

“The democratic transition is finished and my mission is crowned with success,” boasted transitional President Jose Sarney after casting his vote Wednesday.

Millions of party workers promoting their candidates handed out palm cards and propaganda leaflets during the day in last-minute efforts to influence the vote. Ivanilde Alves, 31, was handing out leaflets for Lula near a slum housing project in the district of Leblon.

“He is the only one who represents that portion of the Brazilian people who have no opportunity for school or for health care,” said Alves, a secretary. “He has proposals aimed at those problems.”

Maurilio Damasceno, 28, passed by with his wife and two children on his way from a nearby polling place. Damasceno, a store clerk who lives in a large Rio slum, said he voted for Brizola because the former governor of Rio de Janeiro state carried out popular social programs.

“He did a lot for the poorest people,” said Damasceno.

Jaime Ferreiro Rodrigues, 61, said his vote was based on fear of possible violence and revolution in Brazil.

“To prevent this from turning into a Colombia or turning into a Cuba, I voted for Collor,” said Rodrigues, a lawyer.

Collor, a fiery speaker with youthful good looks, first won national notice as the governor of Alagoas state in 1987, when he led a crusade against bureaucrats who take advantage of special pay differentials and bonuses to earn unusually high salaries.

Another cornerstone of Collor’s campaign has been his opposition to Sarney, whose unpopular administration has come to symbolize Brazil’s economic and social problems.

“It is this thieving and shameless president’s fault that people are living under bridges and this country has become a sea of despair,” Collor said last weekend. He blamed Sarney for the rise of inflation to more than 1,200% a year, calling him “an irresponsible, disaster-ridden do-nothing.”

Lula, 44, a former union leader with a black beard and gruff voice, got a boost at the polls from his well-organized Workers’ Party, which includes many Marxists and is allied with a small Communist faction. The Workers’ Party mobilized more than a million militants in a massive street effort to influence voters.

Lula has the added advantage of being the first of 22 names on the ballot.

Brizola, 67, a former governor of both Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro states, has presented himself as a more moderate leftist than Lula with greater experience. Sunday, the last day of televised campaigning, Brizola appealed for the support of moderate and leftist candidates who have little chance of making the runoff.

“The right is blowing up Lula’s balloon, trying to put him into the runoff because, as we are seeing, it will be much easier to beat Lula in the runoff than any of us,” Brizola said.

The Electoral Tribunal registered 82 million Brazilians for the election.

Brazil had 15 million registered voters in 1960, when Janio Quadros won the last election. He resigned in a political crisis seven months later for reasons never fully explained.

Quadros was succeeded by his vice president, left-leaning populist Joao Goulart, who fell from power in a 1964 coup that began a 21-year period of military rule.

The Brazilian military regime’s “doctrine of national security,” which sought to justify authoritarian rule as a barrier against economic decline and leftist subversion, spread around Latin America during the 1970s.

But a wave of democracy has swept Latin America since the early 1980s. In South America, the only military dictatorship surviving from the 1970s is in Chile, where presidential elections are scheduled for next month.

Brazil’s generals retired from power in 1985, turning the government over to Sarney’s interim civilian administration. During the transition, Brazilian voters have elected a congress and state and municipal governments.