Brazilian presidential vote heads for run-off, Rousseff wins first round

Brazilian presidential vote heads for run-off, Rousseff wins first round

2010-10-04 09:10:41 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRASILIA (BNO NEWS) -- Brazil's former Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff of the ruling Workers' Party received the most votes on Sunday's presidential election, but not enough to avoid a runoff against his main rival Jose Serra of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party.

According to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, with the 99 percent of the votes counted, Rousseff had 46.79 percent of the vote. Serra, the former governor of Sao Paulo state, was in a second place with 32.66 percent. Any candidate needs a majority in first round to win outright and avoid a October 31 runoff.

"I consider this a very special moment in my life," said Rousseff, handpicked by outgoing popular President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. She gave him a "special thanks" for the support during the the campaign.

Rousseff is a former guerrilla leader that fought against the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985. She was imprisoned and tortured in the early 1970s.

Rousseff, 62, daughter of a Bulgarian-born poet-businessman and a Brazilian schoolteacher, served several offices as provincial minister in the finance, energy, mining and communications fields in Rio Grande do Sul state in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nicknamed 'The Iron Lady', Rousseff joined Lula's Workers' Party in 2001. When Lula took office in 2003, she was named mining and energy minister. Rousseff, who has one child, became Lula's Chief of Staff in 2005.

Jose Serra, 68, a social democrat, is making his second bid for the Brazilian Presidency. Serra, a former senator, and both former mayor and former governor of Brazil’s powerful Sao Paulo state, went up against Lula unsuccessfully in 2002.

Serra, a son of Italian immigrants and fruit sellers, was forced to flee the country in 1964 for exile in Chile and the the United States for 14 years after serving as president of the National Union of Students. He opposed the 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

Serra is a founder of the Brazilian Social Democrat Party, and was part of Henrique Cardoso’s government as health minister from 1998 until 2002. Serra, a trained economist, led opinion polls for months, before losing ground to Rousseff.

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