Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula Advance to Brazil’s Presidential Runoff

Flávio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will contest a second round in Brazil’s presidential election after neither secured an outright first-round victory on 4 October.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court said Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, had received 56,104,268 votes, or 47.03 per cent of valid votes. Lula, of the Workers’ Party, had 53,876,617 votes, or 45.16 per cent.

The court’s announcement was published early on 5 October and used results with 99.99 per cent of ballot boxes counted at 00:11 local time. Those figures put Bolsonaro ahead by 1.87 percentage points.

The second round is scheduled for 25 October under the official electoral calendar.

Incumbent Faces Rio de Janeiro Senator

Bolsonaro, 45, is a lawyer, former state legislator and serving senator for Rio de Janeiro. He is making his first bid for the presidency, with federal deputy Alfredo Gaspar as his running mate.

Lula, 80, is seeking re-election after returning to the presidency in 2023. He previously served from 2003 to 2010. His running mate is Geraldo Alckmin, a physician and former governor of São Paulo.

Court Says Count Was Unaffected by Publication Delay

Electoral court president Kassio Nunes Marques said a delay in publishing results was caused by congestion in the system used to display the data.

In the court’s account of his post-election briefing, Marques said the problem did not affect the counting and totalisation of votes. He said electoral authorities were beginning preparations for the second round.

Marques also cited preliminary assessments from international observer organisations. He said those assessments described the process as transparent and reported no serious incidents that significantly compromised voting. Those comments referred to preliminary observations, rather than final mission reports.

The electoral court has made results available through its public platform. Users can inspect totals by office, candidate and geographical area, together with turnout and the number of polling sections processed.

The platform also provides individual ballot-box reports, digital vote records and equipment logs for public examination. Results are updated as the electoral authorities receive and process the records from polling stations.