Dilma Rousseff is Brazil’s president again 8 Photos . Updated: 27 Oct 2014, 01:42 PM IST Livemint In a tightly fought battle, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Workers' Party, was re-elected to the top post, by a slender margin. She defeated pro-business challenger Acio Neves, winning 51.6% of the total votes. 1/8A banner bearing the image of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff will begin her second term as the president, and will extend her party’s rule to a record 16 years. Reuters 2/8Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva congratulates Dilma Rousseff after announcement of the election results, in Brasilia. Dilma, now 66, first came to prominence as the protege of Lula da Silva, when he was the president. Reuters 3/8Dilma Rousseff defeated Senator Aecio Neves, a former governor of Minas Gerais state, in the closest presidential election since the return of democracy in 1985. Reuters 4/8Rousseff, a socialist, who was also a marxist guerrilla in her student years, rode on the plank of reducing inequality and poverty. She did however, lose many votes in the more affluent south-eastern cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. AFP 5/8A file photo from 1970 of Dilma Rousseff, when she was involved in armed resistance to Brazil’s dictatorship. A young Dilma (in her 20s) joined many left-wing and marxist groups against the military dictatorship. She was jailed between 1970 & 1972. Reuters 6/8Dilma is the first woman president of Brazil. After being the Chief of Staff during Lula da Silva’s presidency for 5 years, in 2010 she ran for the post of president and won the election. AP 7/8Celebrations broke out on streets among the supporters of the Workers’ Party, as the results came in. Rousseff, in power since 2010, is popular with the poorer section of Brazilians, thanks to her government’s welfare programmes.Reuters 8/8Neves, a centre right candidate of the Social Democratic party, banked on the discontent in the middle-class with the moribund economy and corruption scandals. Bloomberg