With incumbent President Dilma Rousseff falling short of an outright victory in Sunday's election, Brazil's presidential race is all set for a second round, BBC reported Monday.
Rousseff, who has served a four-year term as president, received 42 per cent of the vote and will face centre-right rival Aecio Neves, who won 34 per cent.
Prominent environmentalist Marina Silva received 21 per cent despite being a favourite at one stage, and is now out of the race.
Silva, who until two weeks ago, was considered an opinion poll favourite to face Rousseff in the run-off and, perhaps even defeat the president, finally fizzled out in the final leg of the campaign.
On results, Rousseff said people had expressed their rejection of "the ghosts of the past, recession and unemployment". She vowed to continue to work for change.
"I clearly understood the message from the streets and from the ballot boxes. The majority of Brazilians want us to speed up the Brazil we are building," said Rousseff, who is from the Left-wing Workers' Party (PT).
Under Brazilian law, the two top candidates go on to a second round if no one takes more than 50 per cent of the vote, EFE reported.
Neves's recent strong comeback, noticed by the polls published Saturday, once again put his Brazilian Social Democracy Party face to face with Rousseff's Workers Party, as in the last five elections.
In his first statement after the result, Neves moved to draw the support of voters of Silva's Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB). She became the party's candidate after the death of its previous choice, Eduardo Campos, in a plane crash Aug 13.
To celebrate his second place, Neves paid tribute to the memory of his "friend", stating that "it is time to join forces" and "all those who can make a contribution" to his project would be welcome.
Commenting on her electoral setback, environmentalist Silva did not provide any hints regarding her position in the second round, but said she would be ready to have a "dialogue" about the government programme that she was offering to the voters.
Rousseff, meanwhile, also said "now the struggle continues" and declared she was convinced that it would be "a victorious struggle because it is the struggle of the Brazilian people and the people united will never be defeated".
