Brazilians headed to the polls on Sunday in a general election whose presidential contest pits two of the country's most recognisable political names against each other. Voting closed at 5pm local time (20:00 GMT) as the nation's electronic ballot system prepared to deliver results within hours of the polls shutting.
The incumbent, veteran left-wing leader Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, is seeking another term against a field of eleven challengers. The most prominent of these is right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
For many observers, the election represents more than a simple choice between rival candidates. It is also a measure of how deeply the events of four years ago continue to shape Brazilian politics and society.
Lula narrowly won the 2022 election by defeating Jair Bolsonaro, a result the former army captain refused to accept. In the chaotic aftermath, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Brazilian Congress, and Jair Bolsonaro was later convicted of plotting a coup. That episode left lasting scars on a nation that had prided itself on its democratic stability.
The most striking feature of this year's race is that the man who dominated Brazilian conservatism for a decade is not on the ballot. Jair Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2023, is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting to overturn the result of the previous election. He is also legally barred from holding office.
The 71-year-old former president is under house arrest because of recurring health problems, and he faces strict restrictions that prevent him from posting on social media or making public statements. Despite those constraints, his influence over the campaign remains difficult to overstate.
At the convention where Flávio Bolsonaro formally launched his candidacy, supporters were shown a video featuring an AI-generated avatar of the former president appearing to endorse his son. Jair Bolsonaro's lawyers have denied to the Supreme Court that he authorised the use of the deepfake, but few analysts doubt that the Bolsonaro political machine remains firmly behind Flávio's bid.
The two leading candidates are effectively tied in the low 40s in the polls, with Lula holding a slight advantage over his rival, according to BBC Brasil's poll tracker. The remaining contenders are languishing at four per cent or below, leaving the contest a two-horse race in all but name.
Under Brazilian electoral rules, a candidate must secure more than half of the valid votes to win outright in the first round. If no one crosses that threshold, the top two finishers advance to a run-off scheduled for 25 October.
Polling suggests a second round is the most probable outcome, though the high number of undecided voters means an outright victory cannot be entirely dismissed. BBC Brasil's aggregator of surveys found that at the end of September around nine per cent of voters were still undecided or planned to spoil their ballots, cast blank votes, or abstain.
Voting is compulsory in Brazil for literate citizens aged between 18 and 70, with fines imposed on those who fail to turn out. Anyone aged 16 or over is entitled to vote. With almost 160 million people eligible, and polls typically sampling only a few thousand, the final result can diverge sharply from the surveys.
Lula, the 80-year-old candidate of the left-wing Workers' Party, is no stranger to the presidency. He has held the office three times, serving two consecutive terms from January 2003 to December 2010. During that period he was widely praised for lifting millions out of poverty through the Bolsa Família cash-transfer programme, a policy that remains a cornerstone of his political appeal.
He left office with approval ratings above 80 per cent, a level unmatched in modern Brazilian politics. Yet his party was subsequently engulfed in sprawling corruption scandals, and Lula himself spent more than 18 months in prison between 2018 and 2019 after being convicted of corruption and money laundering. He has always denied the charges, and those convictions were later annulled.
Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign seeks to channel his father's loyal base while presenting a more conciliatory image to voters uneasy about the former president's legal troubles. As a senator, he has built a profile as a social conservative and a defender of the family, though his opponents argue that he lacks the experience and independence to govern in his own right.
For Lula, the election is both a chance to extend his legacy and a test of whether voters trust him to protect democracy against the forces that threatened it four years ago. His campaign has emphasised sovereignty and social welfare, themes he highlighted in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September.
The stakes extend well beyond Brazil's borders. The country is a major player in global climate diplomacy, hosting vast swathes of the Amazon rainforest, and its position on trade and geopolitics carries weight across Latin America and beyond. Whichever candidate prevails will shape those relationships for years.
For now, all eyes are on the electronic ballot boxes. Brazilians have voted, their choices are being counted, and a nation still reckoning with the aftershocks of 2022 will soon learn whether their next chapter begins on Sunday night or stretches into a second round on 25 October.
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