Brazil’s presidential election will go to a runoff later this month, as no candidate was able to secure the endorsement of a majority of voters in the first round of voting.
Former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly referred to as “Lula” by Brazilians, attained around 48.4 percent of the votes on Sunday, according to figures from Reuters. His opponent, far right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, obtained 43.3 percent.
The second round of the election will take place on October 30.
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Preelection polling had previously suggested that da Silva was on track to winning the election outright on Sunday, with some polls showing him ahead of Bolsonaro by as many as 14 points.
“It seems that fate wants me to work a little harder,” da Silva said in a post-election speech on Sunday night.
Analysts following the election developments in Brazil still believe that da Silva has the best chance to win in the head-to-head contest later this month.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro has been pushing baseless lies about the integrity of the election for months, wrongly stating that voting machines in the country cannot be trusted to deliver a true outcome. On Sunday, after polling lower than da Silva in the election’s first round, Bolsonaro claimed without evidence that election administrators had rigged the outcome.
“They took sides. They have a candidate for president,” Bolsonaro said. “Or at least there’s one they don’t want,...
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