Alfonso Daniels: Religious views put centre stage in Brazilian elections

The YouTube video that helped push Brazil's presidential election to a second round begins with Paschoal Piragine solemnly telling his flock: "In 30 years as a pastor, I've never done this before."

He then warns them that the ruling Workers' Party wants not only to legalise abortion, but would make divorce easier, permit the spread of pornography and continue to allow tribes in the Amazon to bury alive "thousands of children".

The video, which includes disturbing images and has received nearly three million views, concludes with the Baptist preacher telling his followers not to vote for the Workers' Party in upcoming elections. "Otherwise, God will judge our land," Mr Piragine says.

The last-minute doubts of many evangelical Christian and Catholic voters probably cost Workers' Party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff an outright first-round victory in last Sunday's election. Ms Rousseff, 62, went into the vote with opinion polls suggesting she would clinch an overall majority thanks to a booming economy and active support of her mentor and hugely popular president, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva. In the end, however, she only managed to get 47 per cent of the vote compared to centre-right opposition candidate Jos Serra's 33 per cent.

This is largely the consequence of some recent pro-choice comments on abortion and the aggressive internet campaign depicting her as "anti-Christian" - pushing many of the estimated 30 million evangelical Christians in a country of 190 million to turn in the last minute to third candidate, Marina Silva from the Green Party, who got a startling 19 per cent of the vote. The Green contender has been a member of the Assembly of God since 1997, a major evangelical Christian church, and is staunchly opposed to legalising abortion whatever the circumstances.

Abortions remain illegal in most cases in Brazil, but they are readily available for those who can pay in thinly disguised clinics staffed by doctors known locally as "angel-makers".

Ms Rousseff, a former Marxist guerilla fighter imprisoned and tortured by the military regime in the early 1970s, tried to stem this religious tide in the last days of the campaign by emphasising she too was a Christian and by attending the baptism of her first grandson, Gabriel. But this came too late and now she will be forced to seek Ms Silva's support.

It will not be an easy task given most of the Green Party leadership supports Mr Serra. Not to mention the relation between both women is very tense, with Ms Silva regarding Ms Rousseff as one of the main proponents of industrial development who blocked her initiatives when she served as Mr Lula's environment minister until she resigned last year.Making matters worse for her prospects in the second round, Ms Rousseff lacks Mr Lula's charisma, and will have to face again the opposition's overt dirty war to discredit her image by accusing her of being involved in corruption scandals, using Brazil's mainstream - and notoriously anti-government - media as a political tool, which managed to push many Workers' Party voters to Ms Silva's camp.

Despite all this, Ms Rousseff remains the clear favourite to win the elections. Mr Lula is expected to throw his weight behind her campaign, reminding everyone his hand-picked successor is responsible for many of the government's achievements, mainly doubling the pace of economic growth and lifting 21 million people out of poverty since 2003.

And to Ms Rousseff's relief, the Green Party electorate - a collection of landless workers, environmentalists and religious anti-abortion activists - is diverse. Many of them will doubtfully support a centre-right candidate such as Mr Serra, whatever the party leadership decides to do when it meets on 17 October.

But not all is settled. To win, Rousseff will have to detail her proposals and inject some more dynamism into her campaign, in addition to reinforcing her Christian credentials.

"I will face the second round with a lot of drive and energy," Ms Rousseff told reporters in Brasilia.

"I will have the opportunity to provide more details about my proposals to eradicate extreme poverty and ensure the country's development with fast levels of growth," she added in an admission that she realises the task ahead.