Brazil Presidential Election First Round Ends Without Clear Winner, Triggers Runoff

RIO DE JANEIRO, October 5. /TASS/. Brazil’s first round of the presidential election ends without any candidate receiving the 50% of votes needed to win.

Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro will compete in the runoff election on October 25.

TASS summarizes key results.

First-round results

- Official results from the Superior Electoral Court, which serves as Brazil’s election authority, show Senator Flavio Bolsonaro leading the first round with 47.09% of the vote after 99.70% of electronic voting records were processed. More than 56 million votes were cast for him.

- Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva finishes in second with 45.09%, receiving more than 53.6 million votes.

- Bolsonaro leads Lula da Silva by 2 percentage points, a difference of nearly 2.39 million votes.

- The other candidates do not seriously challenge the two frontrunners, dividing the remaining votes among themselves.

- Writer Augusto Cury finishes third with 2.89%, receiving 3.44 million votes.

- Mission movement activist Renan Santos comes in fourth with 2.25%, receiving 2.67 million votes.

- Goias Governor Ronaldo Caiado receives 2.19%, or 2.60 million votes.

- Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema wins the support of 0.27% of voters, or 325,900 votes.

- Candidates from small parties collectively receive slightly more than 0.2%.

- The first round leaves the right-wing camp with a significant advantage going into the runoff.

- Center-right and libertarian candidates who exit the race receive a combined 7.60%, or more than 9 million votes, with most of their voters historically opposing left-wing forces.

- The governing coalition loses ground after Lula da Silva falls behind in the strategically important state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, where victory has traditionally been seen as a guarantee of a national win.

Turnout

- Voter turnout exceeds 78.93% in the general election, with more than 124.9 million citizens voting out of nearly 158.7 million registered voters.

- The abstention rate reaches about 21.1%, with more than 33.3 million people not voting.

- Valid votes total 118.8 million, or 95.23%, while blank ballots account for 1.84%, or 2.29 million votes, and spoiled ballots account for 2.93%, or 3.66 million votes.

Runoff

- Brazil will hold the runoff of the presidential election on October 25.

- Both finalists will participate in a series of in-person debates and work to mobilize undecided voters in the largest metropolitan areas of southeastern Brazil over the next three weeks.

Statements by runoff candidates

- Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil’s presidential race is entering its decisive phase and that efforts to mobilize voters will resume immediately.

- The incumbent president acknowledged that his campaign had anticipated a first-round victory.

- Lula da Silva also called the vote a "lesson in democracy" and personally thanked millions of Brazilians for fulfilling their civic duty by going to the polls.

- Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the right-wing Liberal Party candidate, expressed confidence that he would win the presidential runoff and said the country’s decades of left-wing rule were drawing to an end.

- Bolsonaro promised to run a "clean campaign" and noted that he is the only presidential candidate to have officially committed to ending presidential reelection.

Impact of results on relations with Russia

- Brazil’s policy toward Russia is unlikely to undergo significant changes regardless of the presidential election outcome, international affairs journalist, translator and Latin America expert Oleg Yasinsky told TASS.