Dilma Rousseff re-elected president of Brazil

World Today

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff gives a thumbs up as she votes at a polling station in Porto Alegre, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. AFP PHOTO / Jefferson BERNARDES

Brazil’s incumbent president Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected for another term in a tight presidential run-off on Sunday.

With 99 percent of votes counted, Ms Rousseff had 51.6 per cent of votes in a run-off against senator Aecio Neves of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), who had 48.4 per cent support , according to official results.

“Thank you very much,” Rousseff, 66, tweeted as it became clear she had won.

The race to lead the world’s seventh-largest economy was seen as a referendum on 12 years of government by the Workers’ Party (PT) — eight under working-class hero Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and four under Rousseff, with voters weighing the PT’s social legacy against Neves’s promise of economic revival.

At a hotel in Brasilia where Ms Rousseff was due to speak, party supporters waved red flags and jumped up and down, screaming in celebration.

Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy and its most populous country.

Report compiled with information from Reuters and AFP.

For more insight on the Brazil presidential run-off and the re-election of Dilma Rousseff, CCTV America talked with Paulo Sotero. He is the director of the Brazil Institute’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.