Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a fourth term, after earlier terms that were not consecutive, in Brazil’s Oct. 25 presidential runoff with 51.8% of the vote, while defeated challenger Flávio Bolsonaro first said he would seek to cancel the result and later changed his request to the courts.
The official count gave Lula about 64.3 million votes, nearly 4.4 million more than Bolsonaro’s 59.8 million. The win reversed the first-round result, when Bolsonaro led. It also made Lula the first Brazilian presidential candidate in the modern democratic era to lose the first round and then win the runoff.
A last-minute, two-hour extension of voting, ordered by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin after complaints about access to polling places, complicated the runoff. Bolsonaro’s campaign had also asked for extra voting time in areas affected by heavy rain. Bolsonaro initially pointed to the extension as a reason to reject the result and seek to cancel it.
By Oct. 27, however, he had changed course, saying he would ask for Lula’s election ticket to be canceled. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party accepted the result but said questions about the vote needed clarification. Bolsonaro’s whereabouts became another focus after he did not follow a court order to hand over his passports in connection with a money-laundering investigation.
He and his family arrived in Miami on Oct. 28 after leaving Brazil.