Brazilians have narrowly voted leftist President Dilma Rousseff back into office for a second term after a bitter election campaign.
Rousseff, Brazil's first woman president, went into the run-off as slight favourite - despite overseeing economic recession - and defeated centre-right challenger Aecio Neves by three million ballots for a vote share of 51.6 per cent after 99 per cent of the count.
Handsomely ahead in the north, Rousseff crucially picked up enough middle-class votes in the more prosperous southeast to cement a fourth straight win for her Workers Party (PT).
The 66-year-old daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant businessman on Sunday vowed to work for political reform through dialogue and to give Brazil the change she said she recognised voters wanted.
"The most important reform is political. This president is open to dialogue. This is the top priority of my second mandate," Rousseff, standing alongside two-term predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told ecstatic supporters in the capital Brasilia.
After four years of sluggish economic growth culminating in recession, she admitted her own report card had to improve and vowed to combat corruption.
"I want to be a much better president than I have been to date," she told the rally, issuing "a call for peace and unity" after a vitriolic campaign of low blows and mutual recriminations.
The campaign was the most bitter since democracy was restored in 1985 after two decades of military rule in Brazil.
In defeat, Neves said the "overriding priority is to unite Brazil around an honourable program worthy of all Brazilians."
The race to lead the world's seventh-largest economy was seen as a referendum on 12 years of PT government with voters weighing the PT's social legacy against Neves's promise of economic revival through less interventionism.
The PT endeared itself to the masses with landmark social programs that have lifted millions from poverty, increased wages and brought unemployment to a record-low 4.9 per cent.
Share
