Brazil’s presidential election is heading for a runoff after neither Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva nor Senator Flávio Bolsonaro secured the majority needed to win outright. The two candidates will face each other on October 25 for the leadership of Latin America’s biggest economy.
With 99.8% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court reported that Bolsonaro had just over 56 million votes, compared with 53.7 million for Lula.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the 45-year-old son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and an ally of President Trump, addressed supporters outside his home in Brasília. Some wore Brazil’s green and yellow football shirts, while one woman was wrapped in the Israeli flag.
“Brazil wants change, that’s the reading of what happened today,” Bolsonaro said. “It’s the end of the Workers’ Party era,” he added, referring to Lula’s party.
Lula, 80, had been seeking a fourth non-consecutive term and said the result was unexpected because he had believed he could win in the first round.
“Tomorrow we start a new campaign,” Lula said. “I am very good in the knockout stage. We will see who has the best plan.”
Lula faces a difficult runoff battle
The candidates have three weeks to appeal to moderate voters who backed neither of them in the first round. Ronaldo Caiado and Renan Santos, who attracted moderate support, have previously said they will not endorse either candidate.
Lula is expected to highlight his social policies and his rival’s legal difficulties. He retains a strong base among voters who credit his policies with improving the lives of millions of Brazilians, although his approval ratings fell during his third term.
His campaign also faces an affordability crisis and a corruption scandal involving the same justice who led the investigation into Bolsonaro. Both Lula and the Workers’ Party remain unpopular with roughly half the population, while a similar proportion disapprove of the Bolsonaro family, according to multiple polls.
Bolsonaro has campaigned on tackling Brazilian criminal groups, securing better deals with the Trump administration and developing the rare-minerals economy. He has also promised to secure the release of his father and return him to political life.
“Brazil needs change. Brazil can’t stand so much suffering,” he said after voting in Rio de Janeiro.
Trump allies have performed well in recent elections in Argentina, Colombia, Honduras and Peru. Lula has accused the US administration of trying to influence Brazil’s election in Bolsonaro’s favour through tariffs, the revocation of the Brazilian ambassador’s visa and sanctions against government officials and a Supreme Court justice. The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment on whether it was seeking to interfere in the vote.
Voters divided over Brazil’s political direction
The result leaves voters choosing between Lula’s return to the presidency and a continuation of the right-wing Bolsonaro political movement. Four years ago, Lula defeated Jair Bolsonaro by about 2.1 million votes.
In Rio de Janeiro, Lula supporter Alvaro Senra, a 65-year-old history professor, said he was “calm but very sad” about the result. He attributed the conservative performance to campaigning “under the radar”, including by neo-Pentecostal churches, but said he believed Lula could still win.
Maria Ribeiro, a 50-year-old evangelical cellphone vendor from Brasília, said she voted for Bolsonaro’s eldest son because she wanted freedom to express her faith and hoped he would follow in his father’s footsteps.
Others were concerned about Flávio Bolsonaro’s association with his father. Lorena Zschaber, a 40-year-old photographer, said people had felt more comfortable discriminating during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency.
“I’m an LGBTQ+ woman, I can’t think of anything worse happening than Flávio Bolsonaro being elected,” she said.
Rosângela Resende da Rocha, a 69-year-old former stay-at-home mother, said she supported Lula’s social policies and his opposition to Mr Trump. “That crazy guy wants to come in here to buy our country, so that our country will be like it is over there,” she said. “He won’t succeed if Lula wins.”
The next presidential term begins on January 5 2027. A Bolsonaro victory would increase US influence in Latin America, while a Lula win would see Brazil maintain its distance from Washington and continue deepening its relationship with China.
Brazil’s electronic voting system, introduced in the 1990s, has not been found to have produced significant fraud. The Organisation of American States said voting had proceeded smoothly and safely, while electoral authorities said electronic ballots were secure and verifiable.
Voters also expressed confidence in the system. Josemar Lauriano Pereira, a 46-year-old lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, said the rapid publication of results helped prevent fraud claims and uncertainty.
