Current Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has gathered the largest number of votes in the Brazilian elections, but has failed to achieve an outright majority in the first round. She now faces a run-off against her rival, the Center-Right politician Aecio Neves, who has managed to gather 34% of the votes in the first round of the elections. The second round of the elections will take place on the 26th of October, BBC reports.
The competition for the presidential chair of Brazil promises to be tight, analysts say. The current president of the country, Ms Rousseff, is confident, though – she considers that people have expressed their rejection of the past, the recession and the unemployment, and are willing to continue to work for the change. “The majority of Brazilians want us to speed up the Brazil we are building,” she said.
On the other hand, Aecio Neves has called on the supporters of the second runner up of the elections, environmentalist Marina Silva, to support him in the fight for a change. Neves, 54, is the former governor of the Minas Gerais state, hopes for the voters of the Socialist Party, whose candidate is out of the race for the presidency after receiving only 21% of the votes. The party will gather to discuss any endorsements for the run-off, so things can change a lot.
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Over 142 million Brazilian citizens were eligible to vote on Sunday, and about 80% of them have decided to visit the urns over the weekend. In Brazil voting is mandatory for people between 18 and 70 years of age. After a dramatic campaign and a Sunday filled with expectations and speculations, the world’s seventh largest country is still far – but one step closer – to finding out which way their future will turn. There are not just two candidates, but two different visions fighting for the country: current president Rousseff is considering interventionism a better policy, while the one promoted by Neves is more business-friendly. Each outcome can have a serious impact not just on the lives of Brazilian citizens, but on the international business environment as well.