Brazil Outsiders Are In

In the country's first presidential election in 29 years, Brazil's 82 million voters last week behaved as forecast. They withheld an absolute majority from any of the 21 contenders, opening the way to a second round of voting on Dec. 17 to choose between the two front runners.

As expected, the first-round leader was the crusading center-rightist * Fernando Collor de Mello, a former state governor. At week's end, two candidates who split the leftist vote were deadlocked for the second slot: Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Leonel Brizola.

The wealthy Collor, 40, gained national attention by attacking his state's bureaucratic "maharajas." The radical socialist Lula, 44, left school after the eighth grade, became a lathe operator and entered union politics. The old- style populist Brizola, 67, was once governor of Rio de Janeiro state.