Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won the first round of the Brazilian presidential election. But the difference between him and incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro was smaller than expected. With 97 percent of the vote counted, Lula comes in at 47.9 percent and Bolsonaro at 43.7 percent. As a result, a second round of voting is necessary on October 30, the Brazilian electoral authority says.
The 67-year-old right-wing populist Bolsonaro was far behind the 76-year-old Lula, a left-wing former president of the country in the polls leading up to the election. A significant number of other Brazilian politicians also ran for the presidency. But most of them managed to amass few votes. In the second round it will only be between Lula and Bolsonaro.
The question is whether the incumbent president will accept a possible election defeat in that second round. His previous statements suggest not. “If we have clean elections, I will win today with at least 60 percent of the vote,” Bolsonaro said, for example, on Sunday after casting his vote. He has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the Brazilian electoral system is prone to fraud and that he does not trust the outcome.
Some 160 million Brazilians were allowed to vote on Sunday to elect a new president. Brazil had a military government until 1985, but has been a democracy for decades now. The current election is seen as one of the most important in the history of the largest South American country. Former army officer Bolsonaro even stated last year that he saw only three possible outcomes for himself: an election victory, his death or his arrest.
The polls went largely peacefully on Sunday, election officials in the country say.