Bolsonaro forces runoff in Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO – Jair Bolsonaro outperformed the polls in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, forcing a runoff while proving that the far-right wave he rode to the presidency remains a force and giving the world yet another example of surveys missing the mark.
The most-trusted opinion polls had indicated leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was far out front, and potentially even clinching a firstround victory on Sunday. One had given da Silva a 14 percentage point lead. But Bolsonaro came within just five points of da Silva, whom he will face in a highstakes runoff on Oct. 30.
Still, da Silva came close to an outright majority with 48.4% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 43.2%, according to Brazil’s electoral authority. Nine other candidates split the rest.
“This is a big defeat for the democratic center that saw its voters migrate to Bolsonaro,” said Arilton Freres, director of Curitiba-based Instituto Opinião. “Lula starts ahead, but it won’t be easy for him.”
The vote was virtually free from the political violence that many had feared. Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who also leads the electoral authority, congratulated Brazil for the “safe, calm, harmonious and peaceful” election that demonstrated its democratic maturity.
Yet tensions, as well as the stakes, remain high. The election will determine whether the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps Bolsonaro in office for another term.
The past four years have been marked by his incendiary speech, testing of democratic institutions, widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in 15 years. But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.
“I understand there is a desire from the population for change, but some changes can be for the worse,” Bolsonaro told reporters after the results were released. Bolsonaro has repeatedly claimed – without citing evidence – that the nation’s electronic voting machines are vulnerable to fraud but didn’t challenge the result.
Da Silva is credited with building an extensive social welfare program during his 2003-2010 tenure that helped lift tens of millions into the middle class and saw exports surge amid the global commodities boom. He is also remembered for his party’s involvement in corruption scandals and his own convictions, which were later annulled by the Supreme Court that ruled the judge had been biased. That freed him from imprisonment and cleared the way for his presidential run.
Many voters apparently veered to Bolsonaro after earlier favoring candidates with little chance of victory, according to analysts.
The result “leaves a bitter taste for the left, if we consider what the polls were showing,” said Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.