Divided Brazil poses challenges for Rousseff
October 27, 2014
Final results from Brazil's presidential election have given incumbent leftist President Dilma Rousseff a mere 3.2 percent victory over the other candidate, pro-business senator Aecio Neves, putting her at the helm of a divided country with a sluggish economy, analysts said on Monday.
Rousseff, 66, received 51.6 percent of the vote to Neves' 48.4 percent in an election that pitted the president's pledges of continued social programs for the poor against her rival's business-friendly stance.
The re-elected president will now face the challenge of rebooting Brazil's fragile economy with a relatively weak mandate from the population.
"Such a tight result reduces her capacity to radicalize policies," Miami-based economist Alberto Bernal told Reuters news agency.
"Pretty much half of the country is against what she has been doing," he added.
Promising start
Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla, came to power in 2010 as successor to her Workers' Party (PT) mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the peak of a decade-long boom that saw the Brazilian economy grow by 7.5 percent that year.
Since then, however, there have been four years of meager growth, culminating in a recession in the first half of 2014, jeopardizing her chances of carrying through promises to continue welfare programs that have lifted more than 40 million people from poverty.
Rousseff's critics accuse her of interfering too much in the economy, leading to reduced growth and competitiveness.
She has defended her economic policies, saying she has succeeded in increasing wages and cutting unemployment to an all-time low of 4.9 percent. She has also promised to change her finance minister.
Rousseff's campaign was overshadowed by a multi-billion-dollar kickback scandal at the state-owned oil giant Petrobas, which implicated many politicians allied with the president.
In her victory speech on Sunday, Rousseff vowed to tackle corruption, and also called for "unity" and "dialogue" in a country heavily split along class lines.
About 40 percent of Brazil's 200 million people live in households that earn less than $700 (552 euros) per month.
tj/mz (Reuters, AFP)