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Lula wins votes but not outright victory
Tom Phillips
Brazil’s hard-fought presidential race will go into a runoff after former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva failed to win the overall majority he needed to avoid a runoff with far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
With 97% of the votes counted, the left-wing veteran had secured 47.88% of the vote, not enough to avoid an October 30 showdown with his right-wing rival. Bolsonaro, who significantly beat pollsters’ predictions and will be buoyed by the result, received 43.68%.
Speaking on the eve of the election, Lula said he expected a first-round victory but would redouble his efforts to regain power if a second round was needed.
“I am very excited that these elections will be decided tomorrow, but if not, we will have to behave like a football team when a game goes to extra time. We will rest for 15 minutes and then we will go back out on the pitch to score the goals we didn’t score in normal time,” he told reporters.
The election result was a blow to Brazilian progressives who had defended a landslide victory over Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has repeatedly attacked the country’s democratic institutions and vandalized Brazil’s international reputation.
We’re almost there, Lula, at least, seems sure to have won this round. But a runoff against Bolsonaro is virtually assured at this point.
We will bring you Lula’s speech tonight as it happens.
The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips is waiting to hear from Lula after a disappointing night.
With almost 97% of the votes counted, we are likely to know the result within half an hour.
We hope that Lula will address the media soon, once the election result is confirmed. A bleak night for the left in many ways, with a succession of Bolsonaro victories and a tighter result than the polls predicted. Pollsters said 50/36. Looks like it ends 48/43 pic.twitter.com/DVZCLxmjoe
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) October 3, 2022
Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening tonight, via the Associated Press.
It looks increasingly likely that neither of the top two candidates in Brazil’s national election will receive more than 50% of valid votes, excluding blank and blank ballots, which would mean a runoff would be scheduled for 30 of October
“We will probably have a second round,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. “The probability of ending the election now (in the first round) is too small.”
“The extreme right has shown great resilience in presidential and state races,” said Carlos Melo, a professor of political science at Insper University in São Paulo.
“It’s too early to go too deep, but this election shows that Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018 was not a hiccup,” he added.
Bolsonaro outperformed in Brazil’s southeastern region, which includes the populous states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, according to Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.
“The polls didn’t capture that growth,” Cortez said.
With the count almost complete, a first-round victory looks out of reach for Lula, meaning he is likely to face Bolsonaro in a run-off election on October 30.
Lula’s victory in this round is by no means assured.
The political economist Filipe Campante:
To my non-Brazilian followers: Make no mistake, the odds look substantially weaker for Brazilian democracy right now than they did 24 hours ago. Bolsonaro will have a real chance to win the second round, and in this case we are in deep trouble.
— Filipe Campante (@FilipeCampante) October 2, 2022
Andrew Downie reports for the Guardian from São Paulo:
Two big victories in the Senate in southern Brazil for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. In the state of Paraná, Sergio Moro won the election with 33.6% of the vote and in Rio Grande do Sul, Hamilton Mourão also won 44.3%.
A former army general, Mourão was Bolsonaro’s vice president, while Moro was the judge who headed the car-washing investigation that led to Lula’s jailing in 2017.
Bolsonaro appointed Moro as justice minister, but his image as an anti-corruption crusader was damaged when higher courts overturned his decision to jail Lula and set the former president free.
An investigation by The Intercept showed that Moro colluded with prosecutors to harm Lula’s defense.
He tried to run for president, but his campaign never got off the ground and after back-and-forth talks with parties in at least two different states, he opted to run for Senate in his home state.
Mourão, for his part, defeated veteran PT figure Olivio Dutra, a former governor of Rio Grande do Sul.
Lula is now ahead by almost 4%, but has not secured enough votes to avoid a runoff with Bolsonaro. And the countdown is over.
My apologies: I got the math wrong in that last post (and have now updated it). For Lula to win, he would have to win almost all of the remaining votes, no more than half of the remaining votes. It is extremely, extremely unlikely that there is no runoff.
Updated 01.06 BST
We are getting closer to the final result, but it still seems unlikely that Lula will achieve an outright victory. If he does not get more than 50% of the vote, Brazilians will go to the polls again on October 30 for a second round.
It’s still technically possible for him to win – he’d need almost all of the remaining votes.
With more than 90% of the votes counted, Lula is still ahead, now with more than 3%.
Runoff still seems the most likely outcome. pic.twitter.com/meEgOYgIQV
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 2, 2022
Updated 01.06 BST
Who is Lula? The former shoe shiner, factory worker and the man Barack Obama called “the most popular president on earth.”
From my colleague Tom Philips:
After winning Brazil’s 2002 election, Lula used the proceeds of a commodity boom to help millions of citizens escape poverty and became a respected international statesman, helping Brazil secure the World Cup of 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games.
Lula left power in 2010 with an approval rating close to 90%. But the next decade was brutal for the left and its party. The PT was embroiled in a series of wide-ranging corruption scandals and accused of plunging Brazil into a wild recession. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached in 2016 in what many supporters called a political “coup”.
Two years later, Lula was jailed after being convicted on corruption charges that were overturned last year, paving the way for his sensational bid to regain the presidency.
Lula would spend 580 days behind bars, during which time the far-right ex-soldier Jair Bolsonaro was elected, ushering in an era of Amazonian destruction and international isolation.
But the veteran leftist appears to have used his prison time wisely, planning what just a few years ago seemed an unthinkable return to the presidential palace in Brasilia.
On Saturday, Lula said he would take to the streets of São Paulo on election night to party. “To rise from the ashes as we have risen,” he said, “is cause for great, great joy and celebration.”
With more than 80% of the votes counted, Lula has gained some ground in his leadership over Bolsonaro.
But it seems highly unlikely, though still not technically impossible, that he will get more than the 50% needed to win outright and avoid a runoff.
Updated at 00.26 BST
The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips reports from outside Lula’s hotel, where his lead over Bolsonaro was recently announced:
There were scenes of joy outside Lula’s hotel as the news was reported. “I feel an inexplicable emotion. It’s like a World Cup final,” said Liliane Carvalho, a 41-year-old activist wearing a red cap with the slogan: “Lula is president again.”
Carvalho said she was convinced Lula was headed for a first-round victory. But Brazil’s leading pollster, DataFolha, now predicts the presidential election will go to a runoff on October 30.
A supporter of former president and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts as people gather after polling stations closed in the presidential election, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 2, 2022. Picture: Amanda Perobelli/Reuters
Updated at 00.19 BST
The Datafolha survey predicts the runoff
Polling firm Datafolha predicts the election will go to a second round on October 30, which means Lula will not have won more than 50% of the vote in this round, a surprising result given the previous poll that showed the left leader who ensures a comfortable victory.
If you’re just joining us, Brazilians voted Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine whether the country returns a leftist at the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far right in office for another four years .
With 70% of the votes counted, leader and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party finished just ahead of far-right incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro.
The winner must get more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff. If the elections go to the second round, it will take place on October 30.
Recent opinion polls have given da Silva (known as Lula) a significant lead. The latest Datafolha poll published on Saturday found a 50% to 36% lead for da Silva among those who wanted to vote. 12,800 people were interviewed, with a margin of error of two percentage points.
Lula takes the lead with 70% of the votes counted
After a nail-biting first hour of counting – and with another tense hour or so towards the end – the left-wing favorite Lula has beaten Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election.
Lula currently has 45.74% of the vote, compared to Bolsonaro’s 45.51%.
The Guardian’s Tom Philips reports on…