Rousseff, Silva Face Off in Second Presidential TV Debate

The differences between the two candidates resulted in some extremely tense moments and colored the entire debate, which was organized by SBT television and other media outlets.

Also participating in the debate was Social Democrat Aecio Neves, who is running third in the voter surveys, along with five other candidates.

Voter surveys say that Rousseff and Silva are virtually neck and neck in the runup to the first electoral round, and they mutually accused each other of placing the Brazilian economy in danger with their proposals and threatening the country with a resurgence in unemployment.

Silva became the PSB candidate after party president Eduardo Campos died two weeks ago in a plane crash, and since then she has shot up in the polls and knocked Rousseff out of her unchallenged No. 1 spot.