Brazil’s presidential election is heading to a second round after Flávio Bolsonaro finished ahead of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first vote on Sunday, 4 October. With 99.99 per cent of ballot boxes counted by 00:11 on Monday, 5 October, the senator had 56,104,268 votes, or 47.03 per cent of valid ballots. Lula received 53,876,617 votes, or 45.16 per cent. Neither cleared the threshold needed to win outright, and the pair are due to face one another again on 25 October.
The result is consequential but not a presidential victory for either candidate. Brazil’s two-round system requires a candidate to secure more than half of valid votes to avoid a run-off. Flávio’s lead was just over 2.2 million votes, while Lula remains close enough that the first-round margin cannot settle the contest. The final stage will turn attention to whether voters who backed other presidential candidates abstain, switch sides, or coalesce behind one of the finalists.
Before the vote, private polls had generally put Lula ahead by about three percentage points. The outcome therefore reversed expectations and gives Flávio momentum entering the campaign’s closing phase. His first-round total is also a measure of support that extends beyond the established conservative base, though the run-off may bring a different calculation: voters who chose a third candidate must decide whether either finalist represents an acceptable alternative.
The presidential contest was only one part of a wider election that renewed all 513 seats in the lower house and two-thirds of the 81-seat Senate. The Liberal Party, home to Flávio Bolsonaro, increased its Senate representation from 15 seats to 28, its strongest result since Brazil’s return to democracy under the 1988 constitution. Projections put the party’s lower-house total at 121, up from 98. A broader centre-right and right-wing grouping was projected to approach 250 seats in the lower house and exceed 30 in the Senate.
The Workers’ Party also made gains, retaining nine Senate seats, while a three-party bloc led by it was projected to hold 88 seats in the lower house, compared with 82 before the election. The figures point to a legislature in which bargaining will matter whichever candidate wins the presidency. Congress has gained influence over public spending and appointments, and an executive without reliable legislative support may find it difficult to pass its programme. The projections are not the same as a completed governing majority: alliances can shift, and party totals alone do not guarantee votes on individual bills.
One immediate test of that balance concerns Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio’s father, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted in connection with a plot to overturn the 2022 election. Flávio has made amnesty for his father a political objective. A supportive Congress, particularly a stronger Senate bloc, could make that demand more consequential. Senators also have a role in impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court justices, adding a constitutional dimension to the newly elected chamber’s balance. These are possible political consequences, not decisions already taken: amnesty would require legislative action, and the next president is not yet known.
The run-off campaign will take place against a difficult mix of household cost pressures, insecurity, corruption concerns, public debt and a subdued growth outlook. Those issues shaped the first round, but the narrow result and changed parliamentary arithmetic create a new choice for voters: not simply between two candidates, but between competing approaches to executive power and the institutions that constrain it. Until 25 October, the vote totals describe the opening position only. They do not establish who will govern, whether a proposed amnesty could pass, or how lawmakers will align once the new Congress takes office.
