Leftist Lula wins fourth term in Brazil, conservative Bolsonaro vows to lead resistance

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a fourth term in the Oct. 25 presidential runoff, receiving 51.8% of the vote and leading Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro by nearly 4.4 million votes with all ballots counted. Bolsonaro alleged that unequal access to voting caused by an extension of voting hours called the results into question as he vowed to lead his party’s new majority in resisting Lula. 

“It’s impossible to recognize the results of the election in the context of these things that happened,” Bolsonaro said, in a speech following the election. He criticized Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula’s former personal lawyer, for “changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.” He said the extension of voting broke equal treatment of voters across cities and states, and that his legal team had been activated to seek annulment of the tally, CNN Brasil reported. 

The Latin Times explained that the order from Justice Zanin was unusual, since election-related rulings should come from the country’s Superior Electoral Court. 

Zanin’s order responded to a complaint by Lula’s coalition, Brasil Pronto Pra Mais, which alleged that the Bahia cities of Salvador, Feira de Santana, and Lauro de Freitas failed to provide enough buses for voters, in violation of a Supreme Court decision guaranteeing transport on election days, according to Poder360, which published the Portuguese-language order Oct. 25. 

Citing the gravity of the facts and the urgency of the measure, Zanin ordered voting extended by two hours, to 7 p.m. in Brasília, and directed the electoral court to carry it out. 

“Following reports that several polling stations had already closed, the Superior Electoral Court clarified that the extension should apply only to polling stations that were still open,” according to Agência Brasil.

The Bolsonaro campaign separately asked the electoral court for more voting time over heavy rain, flooding, and power outages in five states. The Latin Times reported that Zanin granted the requests from both candidates. 

Superior Electoral Court President Kassio Nunes Marques, a Supreme Court justice appointed by then-president Jair Bolsonaro in 2020, explained in a report posted by the electoral court that the extension of voting so close to the end of the planned closing time required a pause in accepting results from polling stations. But despite the difficulties, Nunes Marques said the measures taken and the work of the technical teams allowed the vote count to progress. 

“What happened today was not normal. It was, in fact, unacceptable,” Bolsonaro said, according to  Agência Brasil. “A Supreme Court justice — for the first time in history, a former lawyer for Lula — signed a decree at the request of a former business partner and changed the rules of the game midway through the game,” he explained.

“At 5:01 p.m., Justice Zanin — who is not a member of the Superior Electoral Court — bypassed the specialized electoral court system and decided to extend voting hours by two hours,” he added. “This had never happened in Brazil’s history. There was a complete breakdown of equality among Brazilians in different cities and states. I’ll never know how many votes I might have received in a state where polling stations weren’t reopened. It’s inexplicable that this actually happened.”

Nunes Marques said electoral authorities were examining reports of bus problems in Bahia, the International Business Times reported. The Bahia Regional Electoral Court ordered the arrest of Salvador’s transportation secretary, Pablo Souza, over the disruption. Salvador Mayor Bruno Reis, a Bolsonaro ally, acknowledged that 75 buses were kept at a depot and blamed trade unionists, alleging they attached Workers’ Party materials to the buses, the report said. 

The Organization of American States said it was monitoring complaints about transportation disruptions, and that international observers praised the voting procedures they saw.

Lula, 80, who is due to begin his fourth non-consecutive term Jan. 5, 2027, told supporters the result was “a defeat for denialism and lies.” 

Bolsonaro led the first round of voting Oct. 4, receiving 47.03% of valid votes to Lula’s 45.16%, Just the News reported, while Breitbart noted that most polls before the runoff showed him slightly ahead, many within the margin of error. 

Flávio Bolsonaro’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year prison sentence after losing the 2022 election to Lula. At the time, Jair Bolsonaro alleged widespread irregularities and likely fraud, which prompted many of his supporters to protest at the Brazilian Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential palace. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court subsequently charged the elder Bolsonaro with abuse of office for questioning the validity of the 2022 election and barred him from running for public office. He was also charged before the Supreme Court with attempting a coup to retain power.

In the 2026 general elections, Jair Bolsonaro’s family members and allies made significant gains. His wife, Michelle, won election to the Senate seat representing the Federal District; his son, Carlos, was elected Senator for Santa Catarina; his former Infrastructure Minister Tarcísio de Freitas won reelection as governor of São Paulo and his former Justice Minister Sérgio Moro was elected governor of Paraná.

Flávio Bolsonaro, in a video posted to social media on Oct. 26, asserted that after the 2026 election results were announced, federal police approached him in the street, following a visit to his father Jair, and confiscated his passport as part of a corruption and money laundering investigation. Bolsonaro charged that “it was a decision made according to the election results.” 

Noting that his party won the majority in both chambers of Congress, Bolsonaro said, “to resist the chaos, I will organize the opposition … against the barbarity that is set to happen with four more years of Lula.”