• Sunday 2 October saw the first round of the Brazil elections.
• Among the presidential candidates, Lula is in the lead with 48.4 per cent, followed by Jair Bolsonaro with 43.3 per cent.
• Bolsonaro's result is better than the polls had predicted.
• The run-off is scheduled for 30 October.

The Lula first-round victory that some polls had forecast ultimately failed to materialise. In the Brazil elections on Sunday 2 October, the progressive candidate — already president from 2003 to 2011 — stopped at 48.4 per cent against the 43.3 per cent of the incumbent, the far-right former military officer Jair Bolsonaro. Brazilian citizens will therefore return to the polls on Sunday 30 October for the run-off.

Brazil elections go better than expected for Bolsonaro

So ends a long day that brought 156 million people to the polls (voting is compulsory), with long queues. The electronic system, which the incumbent had been contesting for months without evidence, functioned without any significant issues.

"Against everything and everyone, in the first round of 2022 we obtained a more eloquent vote than that of 2018," Jair Bolsonaro declared on Twitter. It is true that Lula is ahead, as widely predicted, but the gap between the two contenders is narrow. At a time when the left in South America has notched up one victory after another — across Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile — the incumbent nonetheless secured 19 of the 27 Senate seats up for grabs. His support held firm above all in the south of the country and in Rio de Janeiro, the city where he voted wearing the national team's shirt.

Jair M. Bolsonaro ✓ @jairbolsonaro

𝕏

- Contra tudo e contra todos, tivemos no 1° turno de 2022 uma votação mais expressiva do que aquela que tivemos em 2018. Foram quase 2 milhões de votos a mais! Também elegemos as maiores bancadas da Câmara e do Senado, o que era a nossa maior prioridade neste primeiro momento.

♥ 195290💬 13893 3 ott 2022 · Apri su X →

Lula is not giving up. "Yesterday I said I wanted to win every election in the first round, but that is not always possible. Nevertheless, I am motivated by a conviction: nothing happens by chance. All the polls put us in first place, and I always thought we would win. Let's keep going. This is only a postponement," he declared.

Lula ✓ @LulaOficial

𝕏

A partir de amanhã, já estaremos em campanha. Não descansem. Vamos conversar com nossos adversários, com nossos amigos. Nós somos a melhor solução para resolver a vida do povo brasileiro. Boa noite e até amanhã.

📸: @ricardostuckert

♥ 43119💬 1232 3 ott 2022 · Apri su X →

Among the other presidential candidates, centrist Simone Tebet obtains 4.41 per cent after a positively surprising campaign. Labour candidate Ciro Gomes takes 3.09 per cent. Both will issue their voting recommendations in the coming hours — recommendations that will carry weight, given the slim margin between the two run-off challengers.

Bolsonaro's loyalists in the Brazilian National Congress

In the Brazil elections of 2 October, citizens voted not only for the new president but also to renew the members of the National Congress (divided into two chambers, like our Parliament) and to elect the new governors of the 27 federal states.

Here too, Bolsonaro's loyalists fared better than expected. Take Cláudio Castro, the right-wing governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, re-confirmed with 58 per cent of the vote — 11 percentage points more than Ipec, one of the most authoritative polling institutes, had forecast. Former Infrastructure Minister Tarcisio Freitas and Fernando Haddad will go to a second round to contest the governorship of the state of São Paulo, the largest and most populous in the country. Haddad, of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (the same party as Lula), previously served as mayor of the city of São Paulo from 2013 to 2017 and had lost the previous presidential election.

Fernando Haddad ✓ @Haddad_Fernando

𝕏

Vamos em frente, apresentando as melhores propostas para São Paulo e com o melhor time já reunido. São Paulo entrará nos rumos do desenvolvimento com justiça social e criação de oportunidades com Lula lá e Haddad aqui.

♥ 44313💬 2076 3 ott 2022 · Apri su X →

At least seven of Bolsonaro's former ministers won seats in Congress. Among them is Ricardo Salles, Environment Minister from 2019 to 2021, the year he resigned after becoming the focus of an investigation into international Amazon timber smuggling. Among the new federal deputies is also Eduardo Pazuello, one of the four health ministers who succeeded one another over four years of the administration. A military general with no prior experience in the medical field, he was heavily criticised for the slow and inefficient management of the health emergency.