BRAZIL: In the end, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva thanked God that Brazilian voters had denied him outright victory in the first round of the country's presidential election a month ago.
Instead they forced their president into Sunday's run-off round, which he called a "magical moment" that galvanised his campaign, handing him the biggest electoral mandate in the country's history.
With Brazil's high-tech electronic voting system whirring its way through more than 101 million votes in record time, President Lula was declared the winner less than half an hour after polls closed, when electoral authorities said his huge lead could not be overtaken.
In the end he won 58.3 million votes, almost six million more votes than in the historic election of 2002 when he became Brazil's first ever left-wing president.
His opponent, social democrat Geraldo Alckmin, won 37.5 million votes.
Sunday's election was the fifth presidential race since the restoration of democracy in Brazil in 1985, and the first to take place without the economy in crisis or a run on the currency.
The president's victory is all the greater as results from gubernatorial elections leave his allies in charge of 16 of Brazil's 27 states. Earlier this month his Workers' Party defied predictions of a meltdown in support in congressional elections and will form the second biggest bloc in the fragmented congress.
The result caps a tumultuous first term for the former union leader. A year ago he looked a lame duck as polls showed voters turning away in disgust as details of a massive corruption scandal within his administration poured out of congressional investigations and in the media.
The scandals have continued to dog his government, but at the polls these mattered less than the gratitude of Brazil's poor, who have benefited most from his four years in power.
A key factor was the creation of the bolsa família (family purse) programme. It offers Brazil's poorest families up to €35 a month in social assistance so long as they send their children to school and have them vaccinated.
Over 11 million families are now enrolled, meaning it reaches over three-quarters of Brazil's poor and an estimated 40 million voters. This segment of society rewarded the president by supporting his re-election bid in overwhelming numbers.
The question now is what Mr Lula does with his new mandate. On Sunday night he promised "a much better second term than the first" and said his priority would be to work with the country's governors and opposition to reform the political system.
During his acceptance speech he told supporters "the political parties need to be strengthened, and to do this we will discuss right at the start of the new term the political reform which Brazil badly needs".
Brazil's presidents have long struggled for governability in a political system which returns a plethora of micro-parties to congress and sees elected politicians change party allegiance with unsettling regularity.
Less clear is what new action President Lula will take to boost Brazil's sluggish growth rate - which averaged just 2.8 per cent during the last four years, far slower than nearly all emerging market competitors.
Wall Street has praised Mr Lula's government for keeping a lid on Brazil's traditional nemesis - inflation - and paying down the country's huge debt.
But an unlikely alliance of the country's industrialists and left-wingers within Mr Lula's own Workers Party insists that the high interest rates necessary to do this are strangling growth.
Both groups are now urging Mr Lula to lower interest rates and boost economic expansion.
In his speech on Sunday night he said he would continue with his "hard fiscal policy", warning that Brazil "cannot spend more than it earns", but monetarists and their left-wing critics within the government are preparing for a battle over the post of finance minister. Who Mr Lula picks for the job will clearly signal what direction economic policy will take in his second term.
Sunday's result was a harsh blow for the opposition. Mr Alckmin actually polled 2.5 million fewer votes than in the first round.
But the opposition warned that Sunday's overwhelming victory for Mr Lula did not mean it would let up in its efforts to hold his administration accountable for corruption.
"The ballot box does not absolve," warned opposition deputy Roberto Freire. "The election result does not authorise impunity."