Current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff beat challenger Aécio Neves in the country's election Sunday as expected, but failed to win absolute majority. The two candidates will now face each other in three weeks in a runoff vote to decide who becomes the next president.
With nearly all votes tallied, Rousseff, a member of the moderate-left Workers' party, earned 42 percent of the vote while Neves, an economist and former leader of the centrist Brazilian Social Democratic Party, trailed behind with 34 percent.
It's a decent margin but not enough to avoid the runoff vote.
As per usual, the two main parties in Brazil are set to clash. A writer for the BBC says the second round will likely see the two candidates painting one another in a negative light.
"Ms. Rousseff will portray her opponent as a privatising businessman who will cut hitherto comprehensive social welfare programmes ... Mr. Neves will paint the incumbent as an idealistic socialist who will burden the country with more state spending."
Environmentalist and Socialist Party candidate Marina Silva had a strong push and finished third with a sizable 22 percent of the vote.
She's out of the running now, but of the 142 million people who headed to the ballot box Sunday, those who sided with her as well as other candidates will choose between the two front-runners in three weeks.
In fact, a Forbes contributor says with so many voters up for grabs it's still anyone's game and "No one is [expecting] Dilma to walk away with the election at this point."
The runoff election between Rousseff and Neves will take place on Oct. 26.
This video includes images from Getty Images / Mario Tama, Victor Moriyama,
