Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
Brazil’s presidential race will go to run a second round after the far-right candidate, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of disgraced ex-President Jair Bolsonaro beat the incumbent leftwing President, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva but failed to secure the outright majority he needed to avoid a second round yesterday.
With more than 99% of votes counted, the 45-year-old son of the disgraced former president, Jair Bolsonaro, had won 47.1%, meaning he will now face a 25 October showdown with his 80-year-old rival. Lula received 45%.
Bolsonaro will go into the second round as favourite and is likely to be boosted by the migration of votes from the election’s other rightwing candidates, who included Ronaldo Caiado, who secured 2.1%, and Renan Santos, who won 2.2%.
Brazil’s far-right put in a stronger than expected showing, with a succession of Bolsonarista politicians winning congressional or gubernatorial races. They included Jair Bolsonaro’s second son, Carlos Bolsonaro, and his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, who both won seats in the senate. Bolsonaro’s youngest son, Jair Renan, was elected to the lower house of congress. Bolsonaro’s former infrastructure minister, Tarcísio de Freitas, was reelected as governor of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous and economically important state.
Of the 54 senators elected, 34 were from the right or far right.
Flávio Bolsonaro told supporters in the capital, Brasília, that the result signalled “the end of an era” for Lula’s Workers’ party. “Lula has fought seven presidential elections. He’s worried about power. I am worried about the future of Brazil,” he said.
Speaking in Sao Paulo, Lula put a brave face on a difficult night for the left. “We have just had a lesson in Brazilian democracy,” he said. “The result is often unexpected. We can never get everything we wanted. I confess to you that I was convinced I was going to win the election in the first round … But we have a second round.”
Lula said Bolsonaro’s “dark past” would become clearer to voters in the lead-up to that vote. “From tomorrow we will launch a new campaign: [and in] a campaign with only two candidates we will be able to show the difference between our proposals for Brazil.”
After voting in Rio, where the Bolsonaro political dynasty was born in the late 80s, Flávio Bolsonaro urged Brazilians to end what he called Lula’s “era of backwardness”. “I’m more than ready to lead this country and to give Brazilian families the right to dream once again,” claimed Bolsonaro, who has promised an iron-fisted crackdown on crime, despite his ties to members of Rio’s paramilitary mafias.
Lula, who became Brazil’s first elected working-class president in 2002 and was returned to office in 2006 and 2022, is hoping to secure a historic fourth non-consecutive term in this year’s election.
Allies of the veteran leftwinger called the election a crucial battle in the fight against a far-right movement that less than four years ago brought chaos to the capital, Brasília, during an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the result of the 2022 election, when Lula beat the incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro.
As Brazil began reporting results in the first round of a tight presidential election, following a campaign dominated by corruption scandals, economic anxiety and accusations of US meddling.
The field of 13 candidates has been led by two clear frontrunners, leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80, who is seeking a fourth term, and Flavio, the 45-year-old son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who hopes to return his father’s right-wing movement to power.