Brazil Election Goes to Runoff

Brazil still looks likely to elect its first female president, but we won’t know for sure until a runoff on October 31. Dilma Rousseff, the current leader’s protégée—who The Daily Beast’s Ian Epstein calls “a cross between Tim Geithner and Patty Hearst, an economist with a past as a gun-carrying guerrilla”—leads with 46 percent of votes with almost all counted—but she needed more than 50 percent to win outright. Rousseff benefited from the support of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the hugely popular incumbent who’s presided over an era of rapid economic growth. Her candidacy was hurt, however, by a recent corruption scandal involving her successor at a top government post and a surge of interest in a third-party candidate. She’s expected to win the runoff.