Brazil: what to expect from the new ‘old’ government?

Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected as President of Brazil after a much disputed second round of elections, held on 26 October 2014. Winning almost 52 per cent of the vote, the incumbent Rousseff of the Workers Party (PT) defeated the social democratic PSDB candidate Aécio Neves, against a backdrop of economic stagnation and widespread discontent with the political system.

Now the question is what might Rousseff’s new presidential term hold for Brazil? Her difficult victory shows that Brazilians know that there is an urgent need for a new period of domestic modernisation and more effective global diplomacy. If Rousseff fails to adopt new approaches, both Brazilians and Brazil’s emerging international role will suffer.

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