Neves Will Face Incumbent Rousseff In Brazil's Runoff Election

Incumbent Dilma Rousseff will face off with right-of-center candidate Aecio Neves in a runoff election for Brazil's presidency.

With more than 86 percent of the votes tallied, Rousseff has 40.53 percent of valid votes, Brazil's election authority says; she would need to win more than 50 percent of votes to win outright and avoid a runoff.

Neves, who was the third-ranking candidate in opinion polls earlier in the campaign, has 34.83 percent of the partial tally. NPR's South America correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, reporting for our Newscast division, notes that Neves' grandfather, Tancredo Neves, was a much-loved politician "who fought Brazil's dictatorship but died before he could assume the presidency, to which he had been appointed."

With 21.01 percent of the votes, Marina Silva comes in a distant third. Silva, who grew up in poverty and is committed to environmental causes, quickly became the frontrunner in the election after the Socialist party's candidate died in a plane crash in August. But Garcia-Navarro reports that Silva's campaign team failed to counter weeks of negative campaign ads.

The runoff vote will take place Oct. 26.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.