BBC News with Marion Marshall

Polls have closed in Brazil where about 135 million people have been voting to elect its successor to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. His former Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff, running for the Workers' Party, is the favourite to win. From Sao Paulo, here is Steve Kingstone.

From the Amazon in the west to Brazil's Atlantic coast in the east, polls are now closed. It's widely expected that Dilma Rousseff will emerge as the presidential candidate with the most support. The coming hours will reveal whether she's secured the 50% of valid votes needed to win the contest outright. Sixty-two-year-old Ms Rousseff is the former chief of staff of Brazil's hugely popular outgoing president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But during the closing days of the campaign, her large poll lead narrowed. If there were to be a second-round run-off, her likely challenger would be Jose Serra, the former governor of Sao Paulo.