SAO PAULO, Brazil - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a second term in a landslide victory Sunday with Brazilians rewarding their first working class leader after he helped ease grinding poverty while improving the economy of Latin America's largest country.
 
　　With 94 percent of the votes counted, Silva had 61 percent support compared to 39 percent for the center-right Geraldo Alckmin, Sao Paulo state's former governor. Election officials said Alckmin would be unable to pull ahead even if he won all of the remaining votes.

　　Silva's win came after Alckmin made a surprisingly strong showing in a first round of voting on Oct. 1. The vote went to a second round after Silva failed to get 50 percent plus one vote required for an outright win.

　　But the leftist president had the firm support from Brazil's tens of millions of poor voters, who have benefited handsomely over the past three years as Silva increased social spending without raising taxes. Silva also overcame corruption scandals that tarnished the image of his administration.

　　His Workers Party has been battered for two years by charges of vote-buying and illegal campaign financing, scandals that have cost the former labor leader and lathe operator his reputation as a bastion of political ethics.

　　Alckmin hit the corruption allegations hard, but the scandals never touched Silva personally and his tepid campaign style and robotic image failed to win over working-class voters in this country with one of the widest gaps between rich and poor.