Brazil Election Heads to Runoff: Flávio Bolsonaro Leads Lula

Brazil’s presidential race is headed to a runoff after far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro edged past incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva but fell short of the outright majority needed to avoid a second vote.

With 99.9% of ballots counted, Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, won 47% of the vote, setting up a head-to-head clash with his 80-year-old rival Lula expected on October 25. Lula took 45.1%. Flávio Bolsonaro received 56.1 million votes to Lula’s 53.8 million.

Flávio Bolsonaro enters the runoff as the clear frontrunner, likely to be further boosted by a transfer of votes from other right-wing candidates in the race, including Ronaldo Caiado (2.1%) and Renan Santos (2.2%).

Brazil’s far right outperforms forecasts

Brazil’s far right posted stronger-than-expected results, with a string of Bolsonarista politicians winning congressional or state governor races. Among them were Carlos Bolsonaro — Jair Bolsonaro’s second son — and the former president’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, both of whom won Senate seats. Bolsonaro’s youngest son, Jair Renan, was elected to the lower house. 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 belong to the right or far right.

Speaking to supporters in the capital, Brasília, Flávio Bolsonaro said the result signaled “the end of an era” for Lula’s Workers’ Party. “Lula has run for president seven times. He worries about power. I worry about Brazil’s future,” he said.

Lula acknowledges surprising result

Speaking in São Paulo, Lula appeared calm after a difficult night for the left. “We have just had a lesson in Brazilian democracy,” he said. “Results are often not what we expect. We can never get everything we want. I confess to you that I was convinced I would win in the first round… But we have a second round.”

Lula said Flávio Bolsonaro’s “dark past” would become clearer to voters in the run-up to the runoff. “From tomorrow, we will launch a new campaign: 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 ballot, Lula said Latin America’s largest democracy faced a clear choice, highlighting his opponent’s documented ties to criminal elements in Rio, including once employing a relative of a notorious contract killer.

Lula — who in 2002 became Brazil’s first elected working-class president and returned to power in 2006 and 2022 — is hoping to win a historic fourth non-consecutive term this year.

Allies of the veteran leftist politician call this election a pivotal battle against the far-right movement — a force that less than four years ago caused chaos in the capital, Brasília, in a failed attempt to overturn the 2022 election result, when Lula defeated incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro.

Flávio Bolsonaro and the goal of freeing his father

Flávio Bolsonaro hopes winning the presidency would allow him to free his father, who is serving a 27-year sentence for a failed coup plot after refusing to accept his defeat to Lula in the previous election. Before the vote, Flávio Bolsonaro also urged conservative voters who do not support the Bolsonarismo movement but want Lula out of power to vote strategically.

Beyond the presidency, nearly 159 million Brazilian voters also chose state lawmakers, 27 state governors, 513 lower-house members and 54 of the Senate’s 81 seats. Flávio Bolsonaro’s supporters see the Senate race as a priority because senators are the only lawmakers who can impeach Supreme Court justices — a demand of the Bolsonarista camp since the court jailed the former president for coup plotting.

Gloomy mood in a left-wing stronghold in Rio

Hundreds of leftists gathered in Laranjeiras, one of Rio’s most left-leaning neighborhoods, hoping to celebrate a Lula victory to the sound of samba. But the mood turned heavy and many wept as the hours passed and Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead over Lula held.

“It’s sad that Brazilians… have chosen so much regression,” said Marcelo Mac, one of the owners of the left-wing bar Miolo in Laranjeiras, as the scale of the right’s gains was confirmed on Sunday night.

Mac, 46, expressed bewilderment that the son of a man who only four years ago sought a coup was now in pole position to become Brazil’s next leader. “He is so unlikeable that he is even worse than his father,” Mac said of Flávio Bolsonaro.

Next to the bar, a yellow flag bearing Lula’s image carried the slogan: “Turn left.” But Brazil voted for a turn to the far right.

Flávio Bolsonaro appeared to have momentum in the final days before Sunday’s vote, amid public discontent over the cost-of-living crisis and urban violence.

Yet opinion polls failed to predict the scale of the right’s victory.

Italo Andrade dos Santos, 31, a sales clerk and Flávio Bolsonaro supporter, struggled to contain his joy behind the counter at the pharmacy where he worked the night shift on Sunday. “I’m a bit disappointed because I expected Flávio to win in the first round. But I’m happy he’s ahead,” Santos said, adding that he voted “more to get rid of Lula than for Flávio himself.”

Trump becomes a key issue

Donald Trump became a central issue in the election as Lula accused the U.S. president of seeking to swing the vote in Flávio Bolsonaro’s favor in order to “colonize” Brazil and seize its natural resources. Flávio Bolsonaro has pledged to build closer ties with Trump, who hopes a right-wing victory will help him strengthen U.S. control over Latin America after Trump-friendly leaders won elections in a string of countries, including Chile, Colombia and Peru.