Lula Wins Brazil Runoff 51.8% to 48.2%, Flávio Bolsonaro Seeks Annulment Over Two-Hour Voting Extension

Lula won a fourth, nonconsecutive term on Sunday, Oct. 25, with 51.8% of the vote to Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.2%, a margin of roughly 4.4 million votes. Six days later, Bolsonaro still has not conceded.

The result reversed the first round. On Oct. 4, Bolsonaro led 47% to 45%, a gap of more than 2.2 million votes. A candidate finishing second in round one and winning the runoff is a first in the modern democratic era.

The two-hour extension

The dispute centers on election day. Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ordered polls to stay open two extra hours nationwide. The order came around 5 p.m. in Brasília, about three minutes before closing time, and some polling places reportedly learned of it after they had already shut.

Both campaigns had asked for more time. Lula's campaign cited bus disruptions in São Paulo and Salvador. Bolsonaro's cited heavy rain and flooding in southern Brazil. Lula also accused public officials of deliberately slowing transport in areas where he had won earlier.

Bolsonaro still called the ruling "unacceptable" and said it "changed the rules in the middle of the game." He told supporters in Brasília: "It is impossible to recognize the election result given how these events unfolded. We will take legal action. We will ask for this election to be annulled."

Kassio Nunes Marques, president of the electoral court, said the extension did not affect the results. Paulo Sotero of the Wilson Center's Brazil Institute said the move "was not an irregularity" because it addressed localized problems, and put Bolsonaro's chances of a recount or new election at "very very slim."

Bolsonaro has not made public evidence that votes were altered or miscounted. His complaint is about the timing and process of the extension, which was issued with minutes to spare and without uniform notice.

The spending argument

Bolsonaro has since narrowed his challenge. He now says he will seek to disqualify Lula for "an abuse of political and economic power."

In an Oct. 26 Instagram video he said Lula "injected nearly half a trillion reais in public money to carry out the largest vote-buying operation in the history of elections in Brazil." He gave no breakdown.

One measurable piece of the record is the Bolsa Família welfare program. A 15% increase, from about 600 reais ($112) to 691 reais ($134) a month, took effect Oct. 19, six days before the runoff. Bolsonaro called the measure an "act of desperation" when it passed last month.

The likely vehicle is an Electoral Judicial Investigation Claim, known by its Portuguese initials AIJE. The electoral court used one in June 2023 to bar his father, Jair Bolsonaro, from office for eight years over abuse of political power after the 2022 election. AIJEs have also removed governors and mayors, including Amazonas Gov. José Melo in a 2017 ruling over 2014 vote-buying allegations.

Lula has answered in broad terms. In his victory speech he called the outcome "a defeat for denialism and lies." The sources do not show a specific rebuttal from his campaign to the spending claim.

Trump weighs in

President Donald Trump, an ally of the Bolsonaro family, told reporters in Washington on Monday, Oct. 26: "I didn't take sides but it looked like another rigged election, frankly. It looked so corrupt."

He also said, "I like Lula, I get along with him very well. I just thought it was a very bad look, the way it was tabulated with the extension." Trump offered no evidence of fraud. His objection, like Bolsonaro's, is to the extension.

World leaders from both sides of the political divide congratulated Lula.

Bolsonaro's legal and personal exposure

On Oct. 26 Bolsonaro said police had ordered him to surrender his passports on a Supreme Court justice's decision. He said it was based on a comment by his brother Eduardo, who lives in the U.S. and told a podcast two days before the vote that if his brother lost, "I am in favor that he would leave the country." Eduardo cited investigations against Flávio.

Bolsonaro said: "I never had any intention of leaving the country. I will surrender my passports and defend myself against this travesty." Police are separately investigating him for alleged corruption tied to the financing of "Dark Horse," a biopic about his father. No charges in that probe have been reported.

An Oct. 28 report by The Epoch Times said Bolsonaro had left Brazil and landed in Miami. It is unresolved how that squares with the passport order he described two days earlier.

Bolsonaro has also said he will take leadership of the opposition. His father is imprisoned for the attempted coup after the 2022 election.

What is at stake

Lula's win snapped a run of seven straight right-wing victories in Latin America over the past 18 months, according to The New York Times. The next president will also fill four open seats on Brazil's 11-member Supreme Court, the same court whose justice ordered the extension now under challenge.

The next step is whether Bolsonaro actually files an AIJE with the electoral court, and whether the court treats a late-day extension requested by both campaigns, plus a welfare increase passed a month before the vote, as grounds to disturb a 4.4 million-vote result.