Dilma Rousseff is Brazil’s President again

Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was re-elected by the narrowest margin in three decades, handing her left-leaning Workers’ Party its weakest mandate as it confronts some of the country’s biggest challenges.

After scraping by with 51.6 percent of the vote in a runoff against center-right challenger Aecio Neves on Sunday, Rousseff spoke of national reconciliation as she seeks to restart a stagnant economy, push political reform through a fragmented congress where she now has less support, and respond to widespread popular demands to improve woeful public services.

These frustrations sparked angry street demonstrations just a year ago. After victory, Rousseff said “dialogue” was the first promise for her second term but it remains to be seen how much the opposition will cede to her ideas of a statist economy given that growth has stalled, though she has managed to keep unemployment at record lows.