In an election polarized to the extreme, the candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT), Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, won by more than five points over President Jair Bolsonaro. Both candidates will meet on October 30 in the second round to define who of the two will be the next president of Brazil.

After 99.86% of the votes were counted, Lula kept 48.39% while Bolsonaro reached 43.23%. As soon as the first official results were released, after 5:30 p.m., the numbers showed Bolsonaro ahead in the count. Then, the difference was reversed until it turned around.

The alliance of a dozen parties headed by Lula, who had Geraldo Alckmin as his running mate, lost in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the city where his political career was born, where he voted and where he waited for the results. After Sunday’s defeat in São Paulo, the city where he began his political career, the former president said that he hopes to turn the adverse result around.

For his part, Bolsonaro did not give a speech in acceptance of the defeat, but he did speak to the press that was waiting for him at the door of his campaign command located in Brasilia. At the same time, the far-right candidate recalled the triumphs of Gabriel Boric, in Chile, and Gustavo Petro, in Colombia, and referred to the presidency of Alberto Fernández, as a warning about what a Lula administration could be.

The rest of the nine candidates who participated this Sunday gathered together less than 10% of the votes, leaving the candidate Simone Tebet, from the MBD, in third place with just 4.16 points. The new campaign for October 30 has already begun and an even more even and polarized all-or-nothing fight is expected.

Source: NA