Brazil’s presidential election is heading to a runoff after a surprise first-round victory for right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump, who will face leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after neither secured more than 50% of the vote on Sunday, the threshold required to win outright.
With the other candidates eliminated, Lula and Bolsonaro will compete again in the second round on October 25, in an election playing out against a backdrop of corruption scandals, deep political polarization and growing voter fatigue.
Bolsonaro, the 45-year-old son of imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished ahead of Lula with 47% of the votes, despite polls just days earlier forecasting he would come in second place.
Flávio Bolsonaro said he sees his first-place finish as “the end of the PT era,” a reference to Lula’s Workers’ Party, adding that he “ can’t wait to regain democracy in three weeks.” Speaking to supporters in Brasília, he repeated one of his campaign’s central proposals: ending presidential reelections. “I only need one term.”
Lula who came in second place with 44.9% of votes, according to data from the Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, said he hadn’t expected the result. “I confess I was convinced I would win the election in the first round,” he said to supporters at a hotel in São Paulo late Sunday. “Starting tomorrow, we begin a new campaign, he added.”
The runoff will give voters a stark choice over Brazil’s future at home and abroad.
“It’s two competing visions of what the country should look like and what Latin America should look like,” Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and vice president of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas, told CNN.
Voting is compulsory for most adults in the world’s fifth-largest country, and turnout is typically among the highest in the Americas.
The choice facing Brazilians extends well beyond domestic politics and could reshape how Brazil positions itself on the global stage. The results may influence whether the region’s largest country tilts toward a growing conservative bloc aligned with Trump or continues Lula’s pursuit of a multipolar foreign policy.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva votes in Brazil’s presidential election as he seeks a fourth term. Reuters
Lula, 80, is seeking a fourth and likely last term. He governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010 and returned to the presidency in 2023 after a remarkable political comeback: Lula spent 580 days in prison on corruption convictions that Brazil’s Supreme Court later annulled in 2021, restoring his political rights, before he defeated then-president Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election.
In polls right up until Saturday Lula was narrowly leading Bolsonaro, who is trying to carry forward the political movement built around his father. Jair Bolsonaro, now under humanitarian house arrest for health reasons, is barred from running and is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of attempting a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss.
Four other presidential hopefuls trailed far behind Lula and the younger Bolsonaro in the tally of votes Sunday. The now eliminated candidates included centrist psychiatrist and best-selling author Augusto Cury; right-wing former governor of Goiás, Ronaldo Caiado; Renan Santos, a right-wing founder of the Movimento Brasil Livre who ran under the Missão party; and Romeu Zema, the economically liberal, right-leaning former governor of the state of Minas Gerais.
by Alessandra Freitas/CNN – Brazil election heads to runoff between Bolsonaro and Lula, in campaign dominated by crime, corruption and Trump
