Brazil’s top two presidential candidates, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and incumbent leader Jair Bolsonaro, are headed for a runoff vote after a tight first round. After counting 99.9% of the votes, incumbent president Bolsonaro outperformed projections by winning 43.2% of the votes, while former president Lula received 48.4%. A candidate must secure over 50% of the votes before being president.
While voter turnout figures have not yet been officially released, Brazil’s Electoral Superior Court (TSE) announced that turnout was higher than expected, with around 123 million of the eligible 150 million voters casting their votes.
Bolsonaro’s vote share was higher than what several polls had predicted. The latest prediction by Datafolha said the current president would win only around 30% of the votes. However, Sunday’s result saw Bolsonaro beating the poll by at least eight percentage points. Similarly, Lula’s performance was two to three percentage points lower than the projection.
The second round of voting is scheduled for 30 October, giving the two candidates four weeks to garner support. Bolsonaro and Lula have both expressed confidence that they will win the runoff vote.
The 76-year-old former left-wing president, Lula, told his supporters in Rio de Janeiro: “The fight continues until the final victory, that’s our motto.” He reassured that a second round of voting is better since he could directly debate with his rival. “It will be important [to have a second round] because we will have the chance to do a face-to-face debate with the current president to know if he will keep on telling lies,” Lula said.
Meanwhile, the right-wing Bolsonaro and his supporters revelled in his strong showing. Bolsonaro told supporters that he “overcame the lies” being perpetrated against him and felt very confident that he held the advantage going into the second round. Furthermore, Bolsonaro did not dismiss the possibility of voter fraud and indicated the possibility of manipulation in the first round. Bolsonaro also said he would wait for the military to check the results.
"If Lula is elected, an area the size of Ireland will likely be saved from deforestation this decade" @nichferris on how Brazil's election run-off will impact the world: https://t.co/Fl8mA7YIDC pic.twitter.com/hp1mwKzSc2
— India Bourke (@india_bourke) October 3, 2022
“Our system is not 100 percent ironclad. There’s always the possibility of something abnormal happening in a fully computerised system,” he asserted.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly claimed that Brazil’s electronic voting system could be easily compromised and warned that he would not accept a result in which he loses. In July, the President alleged that the country’s electronic voting system is “completely vulnerable” and “cannot give 100% guarantee of security.”
Furthermore, he has accused Lula of not wanting a transparent electoral system and blamed Supreme Court judges and other officials for supporting the former president. In this respect, Bolsonaro has called on Brazilians to boycott the electronic voting system and called for bringing in paper ballots.
•If the opposition candidate was not Lula, Bolsonaro could have won in the first round
— Caio Quero (@caioquero) October 3, 2022
•Brazilian center right parties look clinically dead
•Polls were mostly wrong about the size of the support for Bolsonaro +
Bolsonaro’s repeated bids to cast doubt on the electoral system in the country have raised speculation over his possible refusal to concede defeat. In fact, he has even outlined three possibilities for himself in the upcoming elections: “being arrested, killed, or victory.”
His term has also been marked by his dismissal of the COVID-19 pandemic, which he called a “little flu.” He has claimed that media and politicians are blowing the issue out of proportion and that strict quarantine and lockdown measures threaten the safety of Brazil’s economy and democracy.
During his presidency, deforestation in the Amazon rainforests reached the highest level since 2005. Bolsonaro is also accused of not doing much to contain the record levels of deforestation. In fact, critics accuse him of giving free rein to illegal loggers, ranchers, and land speculators and reducing environmental regulations to allow for more commercial mining and farming to grow the economy.
Brazil (Presidential election):
— America Elects (@AmericaElige) October 3, 2022
99.77% counted
Lula (PT, centre-left): 48.4% (+0.2)
Bolsonaro (PL, right): 43.3% (-0.1)
Tebet (MDB, centre-right): 4.2% (-)
Gomes (PDT, centre-left): 3.0% (-)
...
(+/- vs. 98.99% counted)#Brazil #Brasil #eleicoes2022 #Lula #Bolsonaro pic.twitter.com/MIbPcjU25h
Against this backdrop, reports and polls indicated that Lula would coast to a comfortable victory in the first round.
Lula, who led the country from 2003 to 2010, was known for implementing a wave of social welfare policies. During his current campaign, he has promised a new tax model allowing for more public spending. The former president has also pledged to reduce rising hunger and poverty levels, carbon emissions, and deforestation.
He was convicted in a mass corruption scandal in 2017 and spent almost 19 months in jail on corruption and money laundering charges. However, the Supreme Court acquitted him in 2019 and nullified all his charges in 2021.