Shift to the right in Brazil: Flávio Bolsonaro is just ahead of Lula

When Flávio Bolsonaro went to the polling station in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, he was met with boos. Voters present insulted the presidential candidate as a “fascist” and provocatively chanted the president’s name: “Lula, Lula.” Things seemed to be looking up for him: according to the first electoral counts abroad, he was in first place in 27 countries, while Bolsonaro won in only nine.

But the first impression was deceptive. The residents of Rio de Janeiro ultimately elected two party friends of the booed Flávio Bolsonaro to the Senate, and his right-wing populist Partido Liberal (PL) also became stronger in the Chamber of Deputies. With 47.05 percent of the vote, Bolsonaro Junior did significantly better than the last polls had predicted. Better even than his own father, who only scored 43 percent in 2022. “This is the end of the PT era,” the senator confidently announced after the election, referring to Lula’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) and emphasized again that he was only interested in a single term as president.

In fact, Sunday's election result is devastating for the Labor Party. President Lula was a full two percentage points behind his challenger with 45.14 percent of the vote, a difficult result going into the October 25 runoff. “You don’t always get everything you want in life,” he commented dryly on the result. “I confess, I was sure I would win in the first round – but I have often thought that in elections.” Lula last won the runoff election in 2022 with a lead of less than two percent.

Around 127 million Brazilians voted on Sunday, and a striking number of eligible voters, 21 percent, stayed at home. Another more than four percent voted invalidly or abstained, a sign of political fatigue in a country that has been rocked by corruption scandals for months. Contrary to what some media feared, there were no riots. There were also no excessive police checks on the streets, with which the right had tried to prevent rural voters in particular from going to the polls in 2022.

Overall, there is a clear shift to the right. 19 of the 54 newly elected senators are members of the Partido Liberal, which thus improves to a total of 28 seats and becomes the strongest force in the Senate. Since Jair and his eldest son Flavio Bolsonaro joined the conservative PL in 2021, it has been considered the “Bolsonaro party”. Jair's wife Michelle also joined in 2022 and second eldest son Carlos in 2024. Michelle Bolsonaro, who was initially discussed as a presidential candidate, was elected to the Senate, as was Carlos Bolsonaro. With 49 of 81 seats, the right will hold almost two thirds of the Senate in 2027 and can therefore alone ensure an absolute majority.

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The workers' party PT, on the other hand, was unable to gain any more seats to its previous nine. The former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Benedita da Silva (PT), did not make it, and the former environment minister Marina Silva (Rede Sustentabilidade), who herself ran for president three times, also stayed out. 20 of 27 governors were elected in the first round, including the conservative Tarcísio de Freitas in São Paulo. Five of the elected governors belong to the PL, which also becomes the strongest force in the states. The workers' party PT was able to hold its own in three states and is going into the runoff elections in two others. In the Chamber of Deputies, the PL with 99 representatives is also ahead of the PT with 67.

Flávio Bolsonaro won the most votes in the conservative south of the country and in the southwest, where the agricultural lobby is at home. Lula scored particularly well in the north and northeast, where most of the welfare recipients live. In the northeast capitals, Flávio was still able to gain up to five percentage points compared to his father. Apparently the news about orgies, connections to organized crime and the imprisoned scandal banker Daniel Vorcaro did not do any lasting damage to the candidate.

Despite the election success of his political opponent, President Lula was confident; “Tomorrow we will start a new election campaign,” he explained: “The runoff election will show a true picture of Brazil.”