Divided Brazil Vote Forces Runoff Election

Brazil's unpredictable election took another twist Sunday, with leftist President Dilma Rousseff being forced into a runoff race as expected, but against a center-right challenger who only surged in the final week of the campaign. Rousseff will face Aecio Neves in the Oct. 26 runoff vote, required as no single candidate won an outright majority.

With 96 percent of the vote counted, the president had won 41 percent against Neves' 34 percent. As surprising as Neves' rise was the fall from grace of another candidate, former environment minister Marina Silva, who took just 21 percent of the vote.

In late August, she held a double-digit lead over Rousseff in polls after being thrust into the race when her Socialist Party's first candidate died in a plane crash. But over the past three weeks the powerful political machine of Rousseff's Workers' Party eviscerated Silva with what some analysts called the most negative and aggressive campaigning Brazil has seen since returning to democracy nearly 30 years ago.

Silva fell hard in polls and could never regain her footing or get her message out. Neves, however, had the backing of the well-organized Social Democracy Party, which held the presidency from 1994 until 2002, a period when Brazil tamed its hyperinflation and turned its economy around. "Aecio's performance has been extraordinary and one of the reasons for this is the very strong party structure behind him - a party with a strong nationwide presence and which has been in the presidency," said Carlos Pereira, a political analyst with the Gertulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil's leading think tank. "It is now a new election where everything is wide open. Aecio, who until recently no one believed had a chance, has emerged as a very strong candidate."

Neves is an economist and former two-term governor of Minas Gerais, Brazil's second-most populous state, where he left office in 2010 with an approval rating above 90 percent. He has strong name recognition in Brazil.

Rousseff promised to expand social programs and continue strong state involvement in the economy, even though critics complain it creates a poor business environment and the main stock market tumbled every time a new poll showed her on the rise. Neves offered more centrist economic approaches, such as central bank independence, more privatizations and the pursuit of trade deals with Europe and the United States. Neves said he was optimistic that he would be Rousseff's opponent in the second round. He said he'd "love to talk" to Silva about gaining her support.