What Bolsonaro vs. Lula says about democracy in Brazil
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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro head to a runoff vote in Brazil’s presidential election.
Pilar Olivares/Reuters People wait in line to vote at a polling station during the general election in Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 4, 2026. Play Pause Share Shared content is always free to recipients. Copy link Copied! Font Size Share this story Copy Link Link copied
Brazil’s right-wing Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro will face leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a presidential runoff later this month, after he exceeded expectations in Sunday’s vote.
Senator Bolsonaro came out on top in the polarizing first round, but didn’t clinch an outright victory, securing 47% of the vote to 45% for the incumbent, known as Lula. Although polls predicted a tight race, most had given Lula a slight edge. Senator Bolsonaro’s lead – buoyed by his far-right Liberal Party’s strong showing in concurrent gubernatorial and legislative elections – speaks to the strength of anti-Lula sentiment in a deeply divisive race in which both front-runners faced high rejection levels. It also underscores a pivotal moment in Brazil’s democracy.
“If Flávio Bolsonaro wins the election, it is above all [because] a majority rejects what Lula stands for,” says Creomar de Souza, CEO of Dharma Political Risk and Strategy, a Brasília-based consultancy.
Brazilians face three additional weeks of polarized presidential campaigning as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro move to a runoff election. Polls predict a tight race, in which voters are motivated by which candidate they reject less.
That is the case of Paula Mourão, a community health worker who donned Brazil’s yellow soccer jersey to cast her vote for Mr. Bolsonaro on Sunday afternoon. “If I told you that I know what his proposals are, I’d be lying,” she said while on her way to a polling station in northern Rio de Janeiro. “I don’t want Lula to win. And the only way of stopping Lula from getting in is by voting for Flávio Bolsonaro.”
The senator heralded Brazilians’ desire for change as he celebrated his 56.1 million votes Sunday evening. Lula received 53.8 million – nearly 4 million fewer than in the first round four years ago.
The late October runoff ballot might feel familiar – Senator Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost to Lula in the second round of the 2022 election. The elder Mr. Bolsonaro is now serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting to cling on to power following that loss.
Lucas Landau/AP Opposition presidential candidate Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro speaks after casting his ballot in the Oct. 4, 2026, general election. Looking for opportunity Senator Bolsonaro is a career politician who succeeded in simultaneously presenting himself as his father’s heir and as the candidate for renewal. He tapped into voter concern with crime and a cost-of-living crisis to exploit his opponent’s weaknesses during the first round. The number of Brazilians who say the economy is getting worse jumped from 35% in 2023 to 59% in 2026, according to the most recent LAPOP Pulse of Democracy report from Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy.
Lula, who was first elected president in 2002 and has served three nonconsecutive terms, sought to draw attention to scandals dogging the Bolsonaro family. Senator Bolsonaro has documented connections to Rio’s paramilitary mafias and is under investigation for money laundering and corruption over his dealings with a disgraced banker at the center of a multibillion-dollar fraud probe.
But the allegations – which Mr. Bolsonaro denies – did not hurt his appeal with voters. And Lula has struggled to shake his own association with past corruption scandals and economic crises involving his Workers’ Party, which have fed into a “very strong” and ideologically entrenched anti-Lula sentiment, says Daniela Costanzo, a political scientist at the Cebrap research institute in São Paulo.
For many voters, this view of Lula as corrupt is wrapped up with criticism of his economic policies and of the strong welfare state that the former union leader has come to embody.
“People deserve to have opportunities, but opportunities are given by capitalism, not by the government,” says André Andrade, a business owner who was celebrating the first-round results a block from Copacabana Beach.
Nearby, Luciane Stumpf, dressed head to toe in Workers’ Party red, says it is precisely Lula’s track record of reducing poverty and fighting inequalities that appeals to her.
“I’m angry, I’m sad, and I’m upset,” said the beach kiosk worker as the results started to trickle in, showing that key figures of Lula’s coalition failed to secure Senate seats, while two of Senator Bolsonaro’s brothers and his stepmother won election to Congress.
“I believe that things can still be turned around,” Ms. Stumpf says, peering out from under her Lula-branded bucket hat.
Lula said as much as he recognized the results on Sunday evening, promising a new campaign ahead of the Oct. 25 runoff. “We are going to convince the Brazilian people that we need to continue our project,” he said.
Brian Snyder/Reuters Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Workers' Party candidate running for…
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