Brazil’s Presidential Election Heads To A Runoff

Flávio Bolsonaro’s supporters took to the streets across Brazil on Sunday to celebrate after the conservative senator secured a place in the presidential runoff.

He will face incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a second-round vote on October 25th. Bolsonaro collected a little over 56 million votes, compared with 53.7 million for Lula.

According to Brazil’s electoral board, neither man reached the majority required to win outright.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Bolsonaro said, “Brazil wants change, that’s the reading of what happened today.”

Referring to Lula’s party, he added, “It’s the end of the Workers’ Party era.”

Lula, who is 80 and seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, described the result as a surprise:

“The result is often unexpected, we never get everything we wanted. I confess to you that I was convinced I was going to win the election in the first round.”

As the campaign enters its final stretch, both candidates are expected to court undecided voters, along with those who stayed home in the first round.

Related: Thousands Of Brazilians Protests And Call For The Removal Of President Bolsonaro

After the vote, Lula pointed to the scale of the absentee turnout:

“We had 20 million people who did not show up to vote,” Lula said after the vote, “28 million people. And we are going to make an appeal so that people know that at this historic moment in Brazil, voting is necessary for us to define the future of this country.”

The result marks a turning point for Latin America‘s biggest economy, home to 214 million people, with the next presidential term due to begin on January 5, 2027.

A Bolsonaro win would boost US influence in the region, whereas a Lula victory would see Brazil keep its distance from Washington and deepen its ties with China.