Brazil election: Polls close in presidential race

More than 142 million Brazilians have voted in the country’s presidential election, following a dramatic election campaign.

Early on, incumbent Dilma Rousseff had been expected to win outright.

However, the death of one of the main candidates and the popularity of his replacement, environmentalist Marina Silva, means the vote is now likely go to a second round.

Ms Rousseff’s other main rival is Aecio Neves, a centrist, pro-business figure.

Voting began at 0800 (11:00 GMT) and ended at 22:00 GMT. Voters also selected a federal parliament and state governors.

Mr Neves was narrowly ahead of Ms Silva, according to several opinion polls published on Saturday, which all put Ms Rousseff in a commanding lead with about 45%.

Brazil’s voting system is all electronic and is likely to deliver a result within an hour or two after the voting ended.

On the eve of the vote, the Superior Electoral Court moved to dismissed reports that the system was vulnerable to hacking, saying it was “fraud-proof”, despite frequent attempts to hack into the ballots.