By Karine Mayer, South America News Editor
The world's seventh largest economy takes to the polls today, yet many Brazilians are still unsure who to vote for.
Although for the last month the race has been between two women - incumbent president Dilma Rousseff and environmentalist Marina Silva - the latest polls show that conservative Aecio Neves has crept into second place just ahead of Ms Silva.
It has been a roller-coaster ride campaign, but the latest polls show that 40% of Brazilians are likely to vote for the stability of the Workers' Party instead of the sustainable environment of Ms Silva, or a return to the Social Democracy Party with candidate Mr Neves.
The three main candidates are known in Brazil just by their Christian names; Dilma, Marina and Aecio.
Ms Rousseff, 66, Brazil's incumbent president, was imprisoned and tortured by the country's military dictatorship as an armed Marxist guerrilla group in the early 1970s.
But it was due to the former president's support and help that she stepped into the limelight and became the first female president in Brazil.
Despite her tough stance she has failed to weed out corruption, and economic growth has stumbled under her administration.
Ms Silva is the election wild card. She was born to a desperately poor family of rubber tappers in the Amazon and was illiterate until the age of 16.
She then went from working as a maid to environmental activist alongside Chico Mendes, and became Brazil's youngest ever senator in 1994.
She became an official candidate at the end of August when her running mate was killed in a plane crash.
Mr Neves comes from a political family; his grandfather, Tancredo Neves, was the first post-dictatorship elected president in 1984 but died before being sworn in.
He represents the centre-right party. Initially labelled a playboy he has toughened his image in the last few months and attacked Ms Rousseff over the corruption scandal of state run oil company Petrobras which involved some of her colleagues.
A lot still remains to be done in Brazil as the government will have to address health, education, security and urban transport, as well as getting the country's economy growing again, as it experienced its first slowdown following the World Cup.
Some 142 million Brazilians will, by law, have to vote on today as they choose their president, 27 state governors, 513 congressmen, 1069 regional lawmakers, and a third of the Senate.
Then in three weeks' time, should no candidate win more than 50%, the second round will determine the future of the country.
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