Brazilian presidential race moves to second round as Flávio Bolsonaro leads incumbent Lula | Brazil

Brazil’s presidential race will move to a runoff after far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro defeated left-wing incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva but failed to secure the absolute majority he needed to avoid a runoff.

With more than 99% of votes counted, the 45-year-old son of disgraced former president Jair Bolsonaro won 47.1%, meaning he will now face his 80-year-old rival on October 25. Lula received 45%.

Bolsonaro will be favored in the second round and will likely be supported by the migration of votes from other right-wing candidates, including Ronaldo Caiado, who got 2.1%, and Renan Santos, who got 2.2%.

Brazil’s far right performed stronger than expected, with a succession of Bolsonarista politicians winning congressional and gubernatorial elections. Among them were Jair Bolsonaro’s second son, Carlos Bolsonaro, and his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, who both won seats in the Senate. Bolsonaro’s youngest son, Jair Renan, was elected to the lower house of congress. Bolsonaro’s former infrastructure minister, Tarcísio de Freitas, was re-elected governor of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous and economically important state.

Of the 54 senators elected, 34 were from the right or far right.

Flávio Bolsonaro told supporters in the capital, Brasilia, that the result marked “the end of an era” for Lula’s Workers’ Party. “Lula has participated in seven presidential elections. He is worried about power. I am worried about the future of Brazil,” he said.

Speaking in São Paulo, Lula showed courage on a difficult evening for the left. “We have just received a lesson in Brazilian democracy,” he said. “The result is often unexpected. We never manage to get everything we wanted. I admit that I was convinced that I was going to win the election in the first round… But we have a second round.”

Lula said Bolsonaro’s “dark past” would become clearer to voters as this vote approaches. “From tomorrow we will launch a new campaign: (and in) a campaign with only two candidates we will be able to show the difference between our proposals for Brazil.”

Earlier, as he cast his vote, Lula said Latin America’s largest democracy faced a difficult choice, pointing to his opponent’s well-documented ties to members of Rio’s underworld, including the employment of close relatives of a notorious hitman.

After voting in Rio, where the Bolsonaro political dynasty was born in the late 1980s, Flávio Bolsonaro urged Brazilians to end what he called Lula’s “era of delay.” “I am more than ready to lead this country and give Brazilian families back the right to dream,” said Bolsonaro, who promised an iron-fisted crackdown on crime, despite his ties to members of Rio’s paramilitary mafias.

Lula, who became Brazil’s first elected working-class president in 2002 and was re-elected in 2006 and 2022, hopes to secure a historic fourth non-consecutive term in this year’s elections.

Allies of the veteran leftist called the election a crucial battle in the fight against a far-right movement that less than four years ago sowed chaos in the capital, Brasilia, in a failed attempt to overturn the result of the 2022 election, when Lula defeated incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro hopes winning the presidency will allow him to free his father, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a failed coup after refusing to admit he lost the last election to Lula. Before the election, he also called for tactical voting by conservatives who are not supporters of Bolsonarismbut I want to eliminate Lula from power.

In addition to the president, Brazil’s nearly 159 million voters elect state parliamentarians, 27 state governors, 513 members of the lower house and 54 members of the 81-seat Senate. Bolsonaro supporters have made the Senate race a priority because senators are the only lawmakers who can impeach Supreme Court justices — a demand among Bolsonaristas since the court jailed the former president for attempted coup.

Hundreds of left-wingers gathered in the heart of Laranjeiras, one of Rio’s most left-wing neighborhoods, hoping to celebrate Lula’s victory to the sound of samba. But the mood deteriorated and tears flowed as the hours passed and Bolsonaro’s lead over Lula was maintained.

“It’s so sad that the Brazilian people… have opted for so much regression,” said Marcelo Mac, one of the owners of Miolo, a left-wing bar in Laranjeiras, as the extent of the right’s advance was confirmed on Sunday evening.

Mac, 46, said he was perplexed that the son of the man who attempted a coup only four years ago was now in pole position to become Brazil’s next leader. “He’s such an abominable guy that he manages to be even worse than his father,” Mac said of Bolsonaro.

Next to the bar, a yellow flag stamped with Lula’s face bore the slogan: “Turn left.” But Brazil voted for a shift to the far right.

Bolsonaro appeared to be on a roll in the final days before Sunday’s vote, amid public frustration over the cost of living crisis and urban violence.

But opinion polls have failed to predict the scale of the right’s triumph.

Italo Andrade dos Santos, a 31-year-old salesman and Bolsonaro voter, had to keep his celebrations discreet behind the counter of the pharmacy where he worked on Sunday evening. “I was a little disappointed because I expected Flávio to win in the first round. But I’m happy that he is in the lead,” Santos said, adding that he voted “more for bringing out Lula than for Flávio himself.”

Donald Trump has become a key electoral issue, with Lula accusing the US president of trying to swing the vote in Bolsonaro’s favor in order to “colonize” Brazil and appropriate its natural resources. Bolsonaro has pledged to build a closer relationship with Trump, who hopes a right-wing victory will help him further consolidate U.S. control over Latin America after the election of pro-Trump leaders in a succession of countries, including Chile, Colombia and Peru.