Brazil votes in first round of tense presidential election

Polling stations across Brazil closed on Sunday evening, bringing an end to the first round of a deeply polarised presidential election with significance not only for Latin America's largest nation but for the wider region.

This year's race pits incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, against far-right Senator Flávio Bolsonaro — an ally of US President Donald Trump and the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after his failed 2022 re-election bid.

With partial results counted by late Sunday, Bolsonaro was leading Lula. With nearly 65 percent of ballots counted, Bolsonaro stood at 49.8 percent against Lula's 42.25 percent, while other candidates polled in the single digits.

The two candidates repeatedly traded the lead during the final stretch of the campaign, making the outcome hard to predict. In recent days both focused on courting undecided voters in a bid to cross the 50-percent-plus-one threshold; if neither succeeds, a runoff will be held on October 25.

Brazil is now one of the few Latin American countries still governed by the left, following a wave of victories by right-wing and far-right forces across the region, alongside US intervention in Venezuela after the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

At 80, Lula has positioned himself as one of the last regional leaders still willing to say "no" to Trump, and recently accused the US president of trying to meddle in Brazil's election in support of Bolsonaro.

Like his father — who held Brazil's presidency during Trump's first term — the 45-year-old Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has frequently praised the US president and pledged to join a US-led coalition against drug gangs, which has carried out airstrikes killing dozens and deployed military operations across the region.

Voting on Sunday morning in São Bernardo do Campo — the industrial city where his political career began nearly half a century ago — Lula declared: "The people will have to choose between strengthening democracy and barbarism." He also played down polls released on Saturday showing the race was wide open, with either candidate able to lead and force a runoff, or even win outright on Sunday. "The most important poll will take place today," he said.

Flávio Bolsonaro, meanwhile, voting in Rio de Janeiro's northern zone, urged supporters of other right-wing candidates to switch to him as a "protest vote". "Our internal surveys show that people who would otherwise vote for another candidate — also anti-Lula voters — are voting for Flávio Bolsonaro … I hope that is enough to win in the first round," he said.

Claudinei Ferreira Viana, a 45-year-old factory manager in Pinhais, Paraná state, is one of the senator's supporters. "My first choice was Jair Bolsonaro, but because he is under house arrest and no other right-wing candidate is strong enough to take on the incumbent, I'm choosing Flávio," he said.

Earlier this year, polls showed Bolsonaro supporters wanted a ticket led by São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas or former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro. The former president, however, picked his eldest son.

The campaign was also rocked by scandal after the senator was recorded asking a banker accused of corruption to spend $26.8 million (£20 million) to finance a film about his father, along with speculation that Bolsonaro could strip the status of a patron saint revered by Brazilians. Despite this, he remained highly competitive.

According to many analysts, this reflects a direct transfer of the voter base from father to son — Jair Bolsonaro lost to Lula by less than two percentage points in 2022 — combined with an anti-Lula wave, as the president still faces high rejection rates despite positive economic and social indicators.

The incumbent's campaign has also been affected by corruption allegations — still under investigation — involving his son and a former aide, as well as a scandal involving Supreme Court judges. Although not directly linked to Lula, the affair is seen as fuelling an "anti-system" wave, and thereby opposition to the incumbent.

In Sunday's vote, Brazilians also elected 27 state governors, state legislators, all 513 federal deputies and 54 of the 81 senators.

AMC, 40, who asked to be identified only by her initials because she fears retaliation from the conservative local authorities where she works in the interior of Amazonas state, said she would vote for Lula "because of the many programmes he created to support the most vulnerable groups".

"Jair Bolsonaro weakened protections for Indigenous people, and every effort Lula has made over the past four years to strengthen those protections and safeguard the Amazon would be seriously threatened if his son takes power," she said.