São Paulo

The polls got it wrong again.

In the first round of Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) got 48.4 per cent of the vote, 5.2 points ahead of the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Polls had predicted a possible first-round win for the insurgent. But – with neither candidate gaining a majority – they will now face a run-off election on 30 October.

Lula has the lead and remains sanguine about victory. But the momentum is with Bolsonaro, the populist former army captain whose chaotic administration has polarised Brazil.

Under his watch, 685,000 people died from Covid, the number of people facing real hunger went from 19 million to 33 million, and deforestation in the Amazon has hit record levels. Lula, meanwhile, is detested by large swathes of the population who believe his Workers’ party ran a corrupt administration during his first two terms in power between 2003 and 2011. The former union leader was jailed, yet even though he walked free after charges were annulled, millions of people have never forgiven him.

Which of the two men wins out in a month’s time will now hinge on the 8 per cent of voters who fancied neither man, as well as the 5.4 million people who voted null or void.

Centre-right Simone Tebet finished third on Sunday with 4.6 per cent and is expected to throw her support behind Lula, who will also court the 3 per cent of voters who supported the centre-left Ciro Gomes, his disaffected former ally. The numbers suggest Lula is favourite but no one can discount Bolsonaro, whose capacity for doing the unexpected and the unthinkable is one of his stocks in trade.

Sunday’s election was peaceful, which was one of the few promising notes at the end of a bitter and often violent few weeks. One important takeaway came at the end of the night, when Bolsonaro refused to address questions about possible electoral fraud.

Throughout the campaign, Bolsonaro hinted he will not concede defeat if he loses. He spent his entire presidency stirring up trouble about the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system and telling supporters his future was either ‘be jailed, be killed or victory’. Bolsonaro hasn’t just flirted with the idea of a coup, he’s wined and dined it and he is leaving the door open to go all the way in a month’s time if results are not to his liking.

Whatever happens on 30 October, one thing is clear: Brazil will not lurch to the left. Even if Lula wins, Bolsonaro will rally his troops and force his opponent to spend vital political capital in negotiating with courts, Congress and state governors, just to ensure an orderly transfer of power.

If he succeeds and does manage to don the presidential sash power on 1 January, the 76-year-old former metal worker will face a hostile Congress who will make his life difficult at every turn. Brazil’s legislative branch is a venal and dysfunctional menagerie of celebrities, misfits and career politicians. In one recent poll, 76 per cent of respondent rated the Chamber of Deputies the most corrupt institution in Brazil.

Even a skilled negotiator like Lula struggled to make things work during his first term in power. This time around it will be even harder for him to get things done. The down ballot results were an unexpected bonus for Bolsonaro, who saw many of his allies and acolytes re-elected.

His son Eduardo ended the night as the third most voted member for Congress in São Paulo state, Brazil’s most populous, just ahead of Ricardo Salles, the ideologue who presided over a disastrous rise in deforestation as Environment Minister.

Damares Alves, the minister for Women, Family and Human Rights whose cry of ‘boys wear blue and girls wear pink’ was symbolic of Bolsonaro’s war on the woke, was elected Senator for the capital Brasilia.

Bolsonaro’s PL party is now the biggest in the Senate and he will also form a majority in the lower house, where the opposition can muster only 100-odd seats in a 513-chamber.

The candidates and their backers will now slug it out over what promises to be a month of angry debates, on TV, in front rooms, bars and street corners. More turmoil is almost inevitable.