Lula Wins Fourth Term in Brazil Runoff; Bolsonaro Rejects Result and Targets a Supreme Court Voting Extension

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a fourth term in Sunday's runoff with 51.79 percent of the vote, ahead of Flávio Bolsonaro, who has refused to recognize the result and called for it to be annulled, the BBC reported. Lula is the first president since Brazil's return to civilian rule in 1985 to be elected after losing the first round, the BBC said.

The margin was 4.4 million votes, according to the BBC. A global election index citing complete returns lists Lula at 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79 percent of valid votes, and Bolsonaro at 59,826,041, or 48.21 percent. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of convicted former president Jair Bolsonaro, had won the first round on Oct. 4 with 47 percent to Lula's 45 percent. The BBC reported that Lula's campaign focused on turnout after 33 million people did not vote in the first round, and that Sunday saw the largest drop in abstention between the two rounds of a presidential election since 1989.

The dispute centers on a decision by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin. The court's news service said Zanin extended voting until 7 p.m. in municipalities where voting machines had not closed at 5 p.m. He acted in a case brought by the Brasil Pronto Pra Mais coalition against the Bahia municipalities of Salvador, Feira de Santana and Lauro de Freitas, which reduced public bus service on Sunday. The coalition argued that the cuts conflicted with the Supreme Court's decision in a prior case, ADPF 1013, holding that public authorities must provide free public transport on election days. Zanin noted that both campaigns in the runoff had alleged transport problems for voters, the court said, which is why he granted the injunction.

The Superior Electoral Court said that, under Zanin's decision, voting continued only in places where it had not ended at 5 p.m., and that it would resume receiving polling-station reports, tallying votes and publishing results after 7 p.m. Valor Econômico reported that Zanin and the electoral court's president, Kassio Nunes Marques, spoke by phone Sunday to adjust the terms of the extension. A court news release described the electoral court's ministers as gathered in the president's office awaiting the end of voting.

Some Bolsonaro supporters point out that Zanin was once Lula's lawyer and allege bias, the BBC reported. But the BBC noted that both campaigns asked for an extension: Lula's argued that voters in São Paulo and Bahia could not reach polling places for lack of buses, while Bolsonaro's cited heavy rain in parts of the south and in São Paulo. Nunes Marques, who was appointed by Jair Bolsonaro, confirmed Lula's victory and said the extension did not change the outcome, the BBC reported. The network said a challenge appears unlikely to succeed given the margin.

Flávio Bolsonaro called the result "inexplicable," the BBC said. In an Instagram video Monday he said police had told him to hand over his passports and he had been banned from leaving the country; the BBC did not report the reason. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted of a coup attempt following his 2022 loss to Lula.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday, "I didn't take sides, but it looked like another rigged election," without providing evidence, according to the BBC. World leaders including Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum, the European Commission's Ursula von der Leyen, Spain's Pedro Sánchez, France's Emmanuel Macron and Canada's Mark Carney congratulated Lula.

Markets reacted negatively. The São Paulo stock exchange opened 15 percent down, prompting a brief suspension before it recovered slightly, and interest-rate futures rose as investors examined Lula's fiscal plans, the BBC reported. Lula told crowds his victory was a "loss for negativity, lies" and added, "long live democracy." In his victory speech he said Brazil "will not accept being anyone's backyard," a reference to what Trump has called the "Donroe Doctrine," the BBC reported. The BBC noted that Lula bucked a wider Latin American trend in which voters in Argentina, Chile and Colombia have put right-wing candidates and parties in power. His new term begins Jan. 5 and runs to 2030. He faces a divided country and a Congress with many Bolsonaro allies, the BBC said, and he turns 81 on Tuesday.