It's been a turbulent month. After weeks of see-sawing polls
that made the second-round presidential vote too close to call,
Dilma Rousseff edged out opponent Aécio Neves on 27 October
by 51.6 percent to his 48.36 – the tightest margin ever in a
Brazilian election. That meant 54.48 million voters for Rousseff
and 51.04 million for Neves.
The election was divisive. Some analysts saw it as a class
struggle. Working-class voters – grateful to Rousseff for her
steady efforts to raise them out of poverty through the Bolsa
Família income redistribution program – threw Dilma
Rousseff makes a speech after winning the 2014 election their
weight behind the left-wing president, who has taken on their
troubles as her own. Middle-class and entrepreneurial voters, with
higher levels of education and income, were solidly for the
pro-business centrist Neves.
