Run-off Sunday: Back to the polls for Brazil’s president

Brazil returns to the polls on Sunday to decide between President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers Party (PT), and Fernando opposition candidate Aecio Neves. Rousseff, 66, a former Marxist guerrilla who was imprisoned during Brazil’s 1970 military dictatorship, was elected four years ago and became the country’s first female president. She served as chief of staff and energy minister under her political mentor, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

At least the current government brought some improvements to that situation with scholarships, jobs, and a raise for our underpaid workers.

President Dilma Rousseff

Neves, 54, is an economist and former two-term governor of the state of Minas Gerais. He is the grandson of the late Tancredo Neves, who was elected to the presidency in 1985, but passed away before assuming office. The pro-business candidate defends limiting the state’s role in the economy, increasing investment, and reinstating some of the policies of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the last PSDB president who governed Brazil from 1994 to 2002. This weekend’s runoff comes after a first round of voting on October 5, when neither candidate reached the 50.1-percent majority required to win the election. Rousseff obtained 42 percent, while Neves came in second with 34 percent.