Leftist President Dilma Rousseff vowed to reconcile Brazil, reboot the economy and fight corruption after narrowly winning re-election Sunday in the most divisive race since the return to democracy in 1985.
Rousseff, the first woman president of the world’s seventh-largest economy, took 51.6 percent of the vote to 48.4 percent for business favourite Aecio Neves in a run-off election.
After a vitriolic campaign that largely split the country between the poor north and wealthier south, Rousseff crucially picked up enough middle-class votes in the industrialized southeast to cement a fourth straight win for her Workers’ Party (PT).
She will start her second four-year term on January 1 facing a laundry list of challenges: governing a polarized country, winning back the confidence of markets and investors, rebooting the stagnant economy and tackling corruption.
The 66-year-old, a former leftist guerrilla who was jailed and tortured for fighting the 1964-1985 dictatorship, called for unity in her victory speech.
And she promised to listen to voters’ demands for change.
“This president is open to dialogue. This is the top priority of my second term,” she told supporters in the capital Brasilia, clad in white alongside two-term predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
After four years of sluggish economic growth culminating in recession this year, she admitted her own report card had to improve.
“I want to be a much better president than I have been to date,” she said, issuing “a call for peace and unity” after a bitter campaign of low blows and mutual recriminations.
Rousseff has been hit hard by corruption scandals, notably a multi-billion-dollar embezzlement scheme implicating dozens of politicians – mainly her allies – at state-owned oil giant Petrobras.
The campaign was a fierce battle for Rousseff, who has a reputation for toughness and an iron grasp of even the smallest policy details.
In the first round, she had to fend off a blistering challenge by popular environmentalist Marina Silva, who at one point looked poised to make good on her vow to become Brazil’s first “poor, black” president.
Rousseff managed to win the first round on October 5, only to fall behind Neves in the opinion polls as Silva endorsed him.
A furious Rousseff went on the attack, accusing Neves of nepotism in Minas Gerais and playing up a report that he once hit his then-girlfriend in public.
Neves, the grandson of the man elected Brazil’s first post-dictatorship president, responded by accusing Rousseff of lying and “collusion” in the Petrobras kickbacks.
Rousseff now has to try to win back the confidence of the business world after defeating its darling.