Tag: Aecio Neves

Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected president of Brazil, after securing more than 51 per cent of votes in the closest election race in many years.

An official count showed her rival, centrist candidate Aecio Neves, taking just over 48 per cent of the vote.

In her victory speech, Ms Rousseff said she wanted to be “a much better president than I have been until now.”

She faced protests last year against corruption, record spending on the football World Cup and poor services.

Ms Rousseff, who has been in power since 2010, is popular with poor Brazilians thanks to her government’s welfare programmes.

But the vote split Latin America’s biggest country almost evenly in two, along lines of social class and geography.

Ms Rousseff called on all Brazilians “to unite in favour of Brazil’s future” and said she would seek political reform.

“This president is open to dialogue. This is the top priority of my second mandate,” she told a cheering crowd in the capital, Brasilia.

She also thanked her supporters, especially her political mentor and predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“I thank from the bottom of my heart our number one militant, President Lula.”

Her re-election for a second term extends the rule of her Workers Party (PT), which came to power in 2002 with President Lula.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she is in good health after a bout of dizziness at the end of a TV debate.

The BBC reports that she was debating policy with her opponent in the presidential run-off vote on October 26, Aecio Neves.

Latest polls say the two candidates are running neck and neck in what has become an increasingly bitter campaign.

After the debate, Ms Rousseff issued a video on social media looking upbeat and saying she had experience a bout of low blood pressure but had recovered.

She had appeared live on air after the debate, fumbling her words and saying she felt dizzy and had to sit down.

“I think a debate demands a lot from people, so that is what happened to me. Now I am feeling better and can conclude my interview and apologise to the viewer but that is how it is,” she said on air.

During the debate, Ms Rousseff accused her opponent of nepotism.

Mr. Neves, hit back saying officials in the President’s Workers Party were implicated in a huge corruption scandal involving the state oil company, Petrobras.

President Rousseff’s doctor said she had not eaten enough, and it was not necessary to give her a medical examination.

Brazil’s presidential race will go to a second round after incumbent Dilma Rousseff fell short of an outright victory in Sunday’s election.

She received per cent of the vote and will face centre-right rival Aecio Neves, who won 34 per cent on October 26.

In a surprise result, prominent environmentalist Marina Silva got only 21 per cent despite being a favourite at one stage, and is now out of the race, the BBC reports.

Analysts now predict a tight contest as both candidates seek to pick up votes.

Reacting to the result Ms Rousseff – who has served one four-year term as president – said people had expressed their rejection of “the ghosts of the past, recession and unemployment,” and vowed to continue to work for change.

“I clearly understood the message from the streets and from the ballot boxes. The majority of Brazilians want us to speed up the Brazil we are building,” said Ms Rousseff, who is from the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT).

Mr. Neves, 54, a senator and former governor of Minas Gerais State, called on Ms Silva’s supporters to back him, saying he represented “hope for change.”

Ms Silva, 56, said she and other Socialist leaders would meet in the coming days to discuss any endorsements for the run-off.

“Brazil has clearly signalled it is not for the status quo,” she told reporters in Sao Paulo.

“There is no way to misinterpret the sentiment of voters, of the 60 per cent who moved for change,” she said.

More than 142 million Brazilian voters are due to go to the polls to choose the country’s next president, following a dramatic election campaign.

Early on, incumbent Dilma Rousseff had been expected to win outright.

However, the death of one of the main candidates and the popularity of his replacement, environmentalist Marina Silva, means the vote is now likely go to a second round.

Ms Rousseff’s other main rival is Aecio Neves, a centrist, pro-business figure, the BBC reports.

Voting starts at 0800 (11:00 GMT) and voters will also select a federal parliament and state governors.

Mr. Neves was narrowly ahead of Ms Silva, according to several opinion polls published on Saturday, which all put Ms Rousseff in a commanding lead with about 45 per cent.

Brazil’s voting system is all electronic and is likely to deliver a result within an hour or two of polls closing at 22:00GMT.

On the eve of the vote, the Superior Electoral Court moved to dismiss reports that the system was vulnerable to hacking, saying it was “fraud-proof,” despite frequent attempts to hack into the ballots.

During Ms Rousseff’s tenure as president, unemployment has been lower than under any of her predecessors, at about five per cent. The minimum wage has risen and the number of undernourished Brazilians has been falling.

But the past 18 months have been marred by recession and corruption scandals, and protests over poor public services and the World Cup costs.