Brazil 2022 elections live: Lula leads with 90% of votes, but runoff likely | Brazil

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After a disappointing night, The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips is waiting to hear from Lula.

With nearly 97% of the votes counted, we’ll likely know the result within half an hour.

We expect Lula to speak to the media as soon as the election results are confirmed. The left has endured a bleak night on many fronts, with Bolsonarista victories coming in tighter results than polls had predicted. The pollster said 50/36. looks like the end 48/43 pic.twitter.com/DVZCLxmjoe

— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) October 3, 2022

Here’s some AP analysis of what happened tonight.

It seems increasingly unlikely that the top two candidates in Brazil’s national election will get more than 50 percent of the valid votes, excluding dead and blank ballots, meaning a second round of voting will be scheduled for October 30.

“We will probably have a second round,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. “The chances of ending the election (in the first round) are now too small.”

“The far right has shown great resilience in presidential and state campaigns,” said Carlos Mello, a professor of political science at Insper University in São Paulo.

“It’s too early to talk too much, but this election has shown that Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018 is not a small problem,” he added.

According to Rafael Cortez, who heads political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria, Bolsonaro has outperformed Brazil’s southeastern regions, which include populous Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.

“The polls didn’t capture that growth,” Cortez said.

With the counting of votes almost complete, Lula appears unable to win in the first round, meaning he is likely to face Bolsonaro head-to-head in the second round of elections on October 30.

Lula’s victory in that round is not guaranteed.

Political Economist Philip Campant:

To my non-Brazilian followers: There is no doubt that the probability of democracy in Brazil is much lower now than it was 24 hours ago. Bolsonaro will have a chance to win the final and in this case we are in big trouble.

— Filipe Campante (@FilipeCampante) October 2, 2022

Andrew Downie reports for the Guardian in Sao Paulo:

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has won two major Senate victories in southern Brazil. In Paraná state, Sergio Moro won the election with 33.6 percent of the vote, and in Rio Grande do Sul, Hamilton Moran also led with 44.3 percent of the vote.

A former army general, Moran was Bolsonaro’s vice-president, while Moro was the judge spearheading the car wash investigation that led to Lula’s jail term in 2017.

Bolsonaro appointed Moro as his attorney general, but his image as an anti-corruption fighter has been tarnished as more high courts reversed his jail decision against Lula and released the former president.

An investigation by The Intercept revealed that Morrow colluded with prosecutors to harm Lula’s defense.

He tried to run for president, but his campaign never got off the ground, opting to run for the Senate in his home state after back and forth with parties in at least two different states.

Meanwhile, Mourão defeated former Rio Grande do Sul governor and PT figure Olivio Dutra.

Lula now leads by nearly 4 percent, but has not garnered enough votes to avoid a runoff with Bolsonaro. The count is almost over.

Sorry – I got the math wrong in my last post (updated now). For Lula to win, he would need to win almost all the remaining votes, not more than half of the remaining votes. It is extremely unlikely that there will be no runoff.

We’re getting closer to the final result – but Lula still seems unlikely to be outright victorious. If he fails to get more than 50 percent of the vote, Brazilians will head to the polls again on October 30 for a second round of elections.

Technically, he still has a chance of winning — he needs almost all the remaining votes.

With more than 90% of the votes counted, Lula is still ahead – now over 3%.

Runoff still looks like the most likely outcome. pic.twitter.com/meEgOYgIQV

— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 2, 2022

Who is Lula? Former shoe shiner, factory worker and man once called “the most popular president on earth” by Barack Obama.

From my colleague Tom Philips:

After winning Brazil’s 2002 election, Lula used the windfall of the commodities boom to lift millions of citizens out of poverty and became a respected international statesman, helping Brazil win the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

Lula left power in 2010 with an approval rating of nearly 90 percent. But the next decade was a brutal one for the left and its parties. PT has been embroiled in a spate of spreading corruption scandals and has been blamed for plunging Brazil into a deep recession. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached in 2016 in what many supporters called a political “coup”.

Two years later, Lula was jailed on corruption charges dropped last year, paving the way for his return to the presidency.

Lula will spend 580 days in prison, during which time far-right former soldier Jair Bolsonaro was elected, ushering in an era of Amazon destruction and international isolation.

But the veteran leftist appears to have used his time in prison wisely to orchestrate a return to Brasilia’s presidential palace that seemed unthinkable a few years ago.

On Saturday, Lula said he would take to the streets of São Paulo to party on election night. “We have risen from the ashes,” he said, “for greatness, great joy and cause for celebration.”

With more than 80 percent of the vote counted, Lula has made some progress ahead of Bolsonaro.

But it seems highly unlikely—though not technically impossible yet—that he will get over 50% to win outright and avoid the tiebreaker.

The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, reported from outside the Lula Hotel, where he recently announced the lead over Bolsonaro:

After the news broke, there was jubilation outside the Lula Hotel. “I’m feeling inexplicable emotions. It’s like a World Cup final,” said Liliane Carvalho, a 41-year-old campaigner wearing a red hat with the slogan: “Let Lula be president again.”

Carvalho said she was sure Lula would have a first-round victory. But Brazil’s top pollster, DataFolha, now predicts a second round of the presidential election on October 30.

Supporters of former president and presidential candidate Luis Inacio Lula da Silva react as people gather after polling stations close in the presidential election in Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 2, 2022.
Supporters of former president and presidential candidate Luis Inacio Lula da Silva react as people gather after polling stations close in the presidential election in Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 2, 2022. Photo: Amanda Perobelli/Reuters

Datafolha survey predicts runoff

Polling firm Datafolha predicts the election will have a second round on October 30, meaning Lula will fail to get more than 50 percent of the vote in this round – an order of magnitude given that advance polls show the left. Surprising result The front runner ensures an easy win.

If you’ve just joined us, Brazilians voted on Sunday in a highly polarized election that could decide whether the country puts the left back at the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or the far-right incumbent president for another four years.

With 70 percent of the vote, Workers’ Party front-runner and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is only ahead of current far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

The winner needs to get more than 50% of the votes to avoid a second round of elections. If the election goes to the second round, it will be held on October 30.

Recent polls put Da Silva, known as Lula, in the lead. The last Datafolha survey, released Saturday, found Da Silva had a 50% to 36% advantage among those planning to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people with a margin of error of two percentage points.

Lula leads with 70% of the vote

After a harrowing first hour of counting votes – with another tense hour or so remaining – left-wing front-runner Lula has overtaken Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential election.

Lula currently holds 45.74% of the vote, while Bolsonaro has 45.51%.

The Guardian’s Tom Phillips reports from outside the Lula Hotel in São Paulo:

We expect Lula to overtake Bolsonaro anytime now – but that doesn’t mean it’s over. Lula needs more than 50 percent to win outright – a figure below which he will have to take on Bolsonaro in a runoff later this month.

Polls had predicted Lula’s outright victory, but now a runoff appears likely.

In order to be declared the winner, Brazil’s presidential candidate needs to get more than 50 percent of the vote.

Polls on the eve of the election showed Lula, who ruled from 2003 to 2010, was very close to securing the overall majority he needed to avoid a second-round runoff against Bolsonaro in late October. One poll gave Lula 51 percent and Bolsonaro 37 percent, while another gave them 50 and 36 percent respectively.



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