Dilma re-elected Brazil president

Al-Jazeera.com :Brazil’s incumbent president Dilma Rousseff has won a second term, defeating her opposition rival Aecio Neves with a narrow margin in an election that largely split the country between the poor north and wealthier south.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 Neves in a run-off election.The 66-year-old, a former leftist guerrilla who was jailed and tortured for fighting the 1964-1985 dictatorship, pledged to reconcile Brazil, reboot the economy and fight corruption after the victory of her Workers’ Party (PT).”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.Neves, who conceded defeat in a speech to his supporters, called Rousseff to congratulate her.”I told her the priority should be to unite Brazil,” he told disappointed supporters in Belo Horizonte, where he served two terms as governor of Minas Gerais state.The race was widely seen as a referendum on 12 years of PT government, with voters weighing the party’s landmark social gains against Neves’s promise of economic revival.The PT endeared itself to the masses with landmark social programmes that have lifted 40 million Brazilians from poverty, increased wages and brought unemployment to a record-low 4.9 percent.But the outlook has darkened since Rousseff won election in 2010. She has presided over rising inflation amid protests against corruption, record spending on the World Cup and poor public services.Rousseff led the first round earlier in October with 41.5 percent compared to 33.6 percent for Neves. Prominent environmentalist Marina Silva was in third place with just 21 percent of the votes.