Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the Brazil runoff on Oct. 25, securing a fourth term as president and defeating Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro with about 51.8% of valid votes, Agência Câmara reported.
Lula, of the Workers’ Party (PT), took 51.79% to 48.21% for Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL), according to the Chamber of Deputies’ news agency. Lula received 64,256,232 votes.
Bolsonaro said on election night that he would challenge the outcome. “It is impossible to recognise the results. I am going to request the annulment of these elections,” he said, France 24 reported.
On Monday, PL leader Valdemar Costa Neto said the party accepted the result. “We recognise the presidential election results,” he said, but “the issues raised need to be properly clarified,” Al Jazeera reported.
How Lula won the Brazil runoff in numbers
Lula’s margin was about 4.4 million votes, up from 2.1 million in 2022, Agência Câmara reported. CBS News put the margin at nearly 4.4 million. The table below compares the two rounds, using percentages of valid votes from Agência Câmara.
| Candidate | First round | Runoff |
|---|---|---|
| Lula (PT) | 45.16% | 51.79% |
| Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) | 47.03% | 48.21% |
In the first round, Bolsonaro led by about 2.2 million votes, CBS News reported. Lula reversed that order in the runoff.
Agência Câmara said it was the first time a candidate who finished second in the first round went on to win the presidency in the runoff. Abstention was about 19.2% of eligible voters, according to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
How voting hours were extended
Campaigns reported problems reaching polling stations because of rain and public transport, Agência Câmara reported. Supreme Court Minister Cristiano Zanin decided that voting machines would stay open until 7 p.m. Brasília time, or 1 a.m. EAT on Monday, Oct. 26. The scheduled close was 5 p.m., or 11 p.m. EAT on Sunday, Oct. 25. It was the first time such an extension had happened.
Zanin ordered the extension after a request from Lula’s campaign that cited public-transport difficulties, Agência Câmara reported. Bolsonaro’s campaign also asked the TSE to extend hours in municipalities hit by heavy rain, the agency said. CBS News reported that Zanin issued his ruling three minutes before voting was due to end, after requests from both candidates.
CBS News reported bus problems in São Paulo and Salvador, while Al Jazeera reported that Bolsonaro’s side pointed to heavy rain in southern Brazil.
TSE president Kassio Nunes Marques said the request reached the court around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday and that no rule authorized an extension. Extending an election is “possible, but it has to be thought through, calculated and structured,” he said, according to Agência Câmara. He said the Electoral Justice and the TSE complied with the decision “in the strict terms in which it was issued.”
Voting ran to 7 p.m. only in sections that had not closed by 5 p.m. During the extension the TSE blocked receipt of ballot-box results nationwide so that they could not be accessed, Agência Câmara reported. Officials were unsure whether storage capacity was sufficient, and tallying continued after 7 p.m.
Why the extension matters
Pedro Burgos, a professor at the Insper university, estimated that the extension added about 35,000 votes, less than 0.03% of the total, Al Jazeera reported.
Set against a margin of about 4.4 million votes, 35,000 votes is less than 1% of the gap. Even if all of them were taken from Lula’s total, the margin would stay above 4.3 million.
Both campaigns asked for more time, the extension was a first for Brazilian voting, and the TSE blocked nationwide receipt of results while it lasted. Nunes Marques’s account shows the court acted on a request that arrived about 90 minutes before the scheduled close.
Reactions
Lula said the result “was a defeat for denialism and lies,” CBS News reported.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the vote looked rigged, Al Jazeera reported. “Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” he said. He added that he did not take sides, and Al Jazeera reported no sign that he planned to intervene.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on X: “Long live democracy, the people of Brazil won.” Leaders from Mexico, Canada, the European Union, Spain, France, China and Russia congratulated Lula, Al Jazeera reported.
Former president Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence on coup-related charges and is barred from office for eight years, Al Jazeera reported.
For another recent election concession, see Vucic concedes defeat in Serbia’s parliamentary election.
What happens next
The PL said on Monday that the issues raised still need to be clarified. It was not immediately clear whether Flávio Bolsonaro would file the annulment request he announced on election night.
