Brazilians voted Sunday in a high-stakes presidential election pitting incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against Senator Flávio Bolsonaro at a time when the region is shifting rightward in alignment with the Trump administration.
Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, is the son of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup. Lula, 80, is one of the world’s oldest heads of state and is running in his seventh presidential election, having strengthened Brazil’s ties with Beijing.
Trump allies have performed well in recent Latin American elections, including in Argentina, Colombia, Honduras, and Peru.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two will advance to a runoff on October 25 in Latin America’s economic powerhouse.
Brazil’s nearly 159 million eligible voters will also elect 27 state governors, members of state legislatures, all 513 federal deputies, and 54 of the country’s 81 senators in Sunday’s vote.
Accept
Manage my choices
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
Try again
“Many in the Lula campaign were not expecting such a difficult election a few weeks ago, and it is clear to them that the present election is a tough battle and the next ones, without Lula, could be even more so,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in São Paulo.
Flávio Bolsonaro has emphasized his proximity to the White House, although he denies his campaign received assistance from the US government. He has promised to crack down on Brazilian criminal organizations and insisted that Brazil needs to strike better deals with the Trump administration, including in the rare minerals economy, second only to China. Bolsonaro has also campaigned on releasing his father and bringing him back to politics.
“Brazil needs change. Brazil can’t stand so much suffering,” he told reporters at the Rio de Janeiro voting center, where he cast his vote Sunday.
The senator faces his own challenges. He has seen his political career tainted by several corruption accusations, including receiving millions of dollars from a disgraced banker to allegedly produce a movie about his father’s life.
Accept
Manage my choices
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
Try again
Rosane Wink, 67, a retired engineer, is a lifelong conservative voter who supports Bolsonaro and his promise to classify criminal groups as terrorist organizations. “It’s a kind of terrorism that they’re doing with us,” said Wink as she voted in Rio de Janeiro. Last month she had a gun held to her stomach as a criminal bit her hand and removed her wedding ring, she said.
Maria Ribeiro, a 50-year-old cellphone vendor from Brasília, said she voted for Bolsonaro because she wants freedom to express her Evangelical religion. She hopes he follows in his father’s footsteps. “I voted for his father, and I don’t regret it,” she said.
The proximity to his father worried Lorena Zschaber, a 40-year-old photographer, who watched the results roll in at an LGBTQ+-friendly bar in downtown Rio de Janeiro. During his father’s presidency, “people felt more at ease to discriminate,” she said. “I’m an LGBTQ+ woman. I can’t think of anything worse happening than Flávio Bolsonaro being elected,” she added.
Rosângela Resende da Rocha, a 69-year-old former stay-at-home mom, said she supported Lula’s social policies that help the “less fortunate” and how he stands up to Trump. “That crazy guy wants to come in here to buy our country, so that our country will be like it is over there,” she said at a voting center in Brasília. “He won’t succeed if Lula wins.”
Even for those outside the country, Lula’s social programs, including his flagship welfare program Bolsa Família, drove many to continue supporting him. “Thank God I do not need the help of social programs, but I vote for those that need them: health, education, basic sanitation, housing, food,” said Catia Oliveira, a 61-year-old Brazilian who cast her vote from Portugal.
Trump has made his opinions clear on recent Latin American elections, endorsing candidates in Colombia and Honduras. He has spoken out against former President Bolsonaro’s conviction and declared Brazilian gangs to be foreign terrorist organizations, a move Lula opposes and Senator Bolsonaro supports.
Lula has repeatedly warned the US not to meddle in Brazil’s elections. His supporters wore shirts Sunday with messages denouncing US interventionism. Retired Portuguese teacher Maria Lucia Gerson Alo wore a T-shirt that read “neither colony, nor backyard, sovereign Brazil” as she voted in Rio de Janeiro. “We’re not a colony, that time is over,” Gerson Alo said. “Trump should look after his own country’s problems; we will look after ours.”
The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment on whether it is seeking to interfere in the vote.
No significant fraud has ever been detected since Brazil adopted its electronic voting system in the 1990s.
The Organisation of American States’ electoral observation mission reported Sunday that “the voting has been going smoothly and under adequate safety conditions.” Electoral authorities have assured that electronic votes are secure and verifiable.
“We are almost three hours away from the end of the voting and everything is proceeding normally and with the greatest possible transparency,” said Kassio Nunes Marques, president of the Superior Electoral Court, adding that there was “no concrete indication of international interference.”
Voters appeared largely confident that the country’s voting system cannot be tampered with. Josemar Lauriano Pereira, a 46-year-old lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, said the rapid availability of results helped combat fraud and uncertainty. “When results take a lot of time, it creates an opening for people to cast doubt on the results, to say there’s been a problem,” he said.
Alex de Almeida Souza, a 49-year-old social project analyst in Brasília, worried about international interference influencing public opinion on social media but said he trusts the credibility of the Brazilian electoral system. “Who decides is the people,” he said.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
Also Read
- Brazil’s presidential race: Three key takeaways from the first round
- UAE had shared details about FlyDubai flight with Israel, including pilots’ names and nationalities
- Lula and Bolsonaro Advance to Brazil’s Runoff: Five Key Points From the Presidential Race
- Tokyo Stocks Surge as Nikkei Reclaims 70,000 Mark Amid AI Rally