Brazil’s President Dilma Roussett has won reelection after a bitterly fought run-off campaign against a more market-friendly challenger.  Although it extends Leftist rule in South America after 14 years, this election had one of the tightest results in recent Brazilian history.

President Rousseff of the Left-wing Workers’ Party got 51.6 percent of the vote sending her to a second term – just like her partymate and predecessor, the popular Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who came out to campaign for her.  Although Brazil has been rocked by protests over inequality and distaste over the amount of money spent on the World Cup and 2016 Olympics, the poor have fared well with the Workers Party and the UN removed the country from the World Hunger Map for the first time.

Dilma and the Workers were able to leverage that strength to paint themselves the guardians of social justice, and accuse the challenger Aecio Neves of the Brazil Social Democracy Party (PSDB) of planning to end successful social programs and deliver Brazil to the big banks.  The PSDB claims to be a center-Left party, although it has embraces neoliberal economic policies and never really had any support from working people.  Neves lost with 48.4 percent of vote.

The acrimony between the two camps got worse as Election Day drew near.  The past seven days have been filled with insults and accusations, and even violations of Godwin’s Law with both sides comparing the other to Hitler.  Neves said Rousseff was “Frivolous” and a “liar”.  Rousseff accused Neves – the grandson of the last unelected President and scion of a powerful political family – of nepotism.