Brazil goes to the polls: almost 159 million voters choose between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro

Today, Sunday, October 4, almost 159 million Brazilians can go to the polls to choose the next President of the Republic. It is the most anticipated vote in Latin America this year, and it pits outgoing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, as well as ten other candidates running for the Palácio do Planalto.

The Brazilian electoral mechanism provides for a second round if none of the candidates surpasses 50% of the valid votes in the first round: in that case, the two most voted candidates will face each other in a runoff set for October 25. It is an entirely plausible scenario, given the number of candidacies in the race and the distribution of support that emerged from polls in recent weeks.

According to the Datafolha poll of September 28, Lula was credited with 40% of voting intentions, against 36% for Flávio Bolsonaro: a four-point margin that, if confirmed by the ballot box, would still not be enough to close the matter in the first round. The gap between the two main contenders therefore remains narrow, and today’s result will also weigh on the credibility of the opinion polls published in the days before the vote.

The campaign has had a clear international dimension. Flávio Bolsonaro built part of his platform on an alliance with the US administration led by Donald Trump, presenting it as a guarantee of Brazil’s realignment toward positions closer to Washington. Lula, for his part, chose the opposite direction: he strengthened ties with Beijing during his current term and publicly criticized the White House. Today’s vote, in this sense, concerns not only Brazilian domestic politics but also the international positioning of Latin America’s most populous country in the coming years.

The profile of the other ten candidates does not appear in the data available at the moment, and with it remains open the question of how much support they will be able to take away from the two front-runners, a factor that can affect the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. A dispersion of votes toward minor candidates could, by itself, be enough to prevent Lula from reaching an absolute majority today, even while maintaining a lead over his main rival.

Lines at polling stations, reported by international agencies on the ground, began in the early morning hours in the main cities, from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, a sign of turnout that observers already describe as strong compared to previous election rounds.

What is certain, as of today, is the calendar: if the first round does not grant an absolute majority to any of the candidates, Brazil will return to the polls in three weeks, on October 25, for the runoff between the two most voted candidates.