BY TheCable
Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected president of Brazil, after securing more than 51% of votes in a keenly contested runoff, BBC reports.
Rousseff won 51.6% of votes against Aecio Neves, who won 48.4% with more than 99% percent of the votes counted.
Addressing a crowd of supporters after the results were announced, Rousseff said she wanted to be “a much better president than I have been until now”.
She acknowledged the close race and urged all Brazilians “to unite in favour of Brazil’s future”. She also said she would seek political reform.
“This president is open to dialogue. This is the top priority of my second mandate,” she told a cheering crowd in the capital, Brasilia.
She thanked her supporters, especially her political mentor and predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“I thank from the bottom of my heart our number one militant, President Lula.”
Her re-election for a second term extends the rule of her Workers Party, which has governed the country since 2003 with Lula as president. Rousseff was chief of staff to Lula who governed from 2003 to 2010.
Aecio Neves, of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), admitted defeat in a speech to supporters in the southern city of Belo Horizonte.
He thanked the “more than 50 million Brazilians” who voted for him and said he had called to congratulate the re-elected president.
Rouseff’s re-election came after a first round of elections where no candidate got an absolute majority, thus necessitating a runoff.
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