Brazil tallying votes as leftist seeks to oust Bolsonaro in contentious presidential election

Votes were being counted Sunday evening in Brazil’s high-stakes presidential election, where leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aimed to beat far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and retake the presidency.

Polls closed at 4 p.m. EDT Sunday in the race being watched around the world, with long lines of voters still waiting to cast their electronic ballots. With 52% of votes counted a few hours later, Bolsonaro had 46.3% support, ahead of da Silva’s 44.9%.

Pollsters have predicted da Silva, who was Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, will beat Bolsonaro by around 10%. He needs to get more than 50% of the vote or a runoff election will be immediately triggered.

Bolsonaro, a member of the conservative Social Liberal Party, was insisted that he would win the election, while hinting that he would not accept defeat.

His popularity has soured in Brazil, where he dismantled protections for the Amazon rainforest and botched the country’s COVID-19 response.

“I have to take down Bolsonaro,” said Anna Luisa, 70, while sporting a “Get Out Bozo” shirt. The Rio de Janeiro resident said she voted for da Silva in part because she disagreed with Boslonaro’s homophobic comments and his support for the 1964-85 military dictatorship.

Fernanda Reznik, 48, a health worker, said she would wait three hours in line to vote for Lula if she had to.

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“This year the election is more important, because we already went through four years of Bolsonaro and today we can make a difference and give this country another direction,” she said, adding she won’t talk politics with supporters of the current president.

Ricardo Almeida, 45, from Brasilia, also donned political dress to vote, but for the other side.

“I voted for [Bolsonaro] because of his Christian faith, his defense of family values and his conservative politics,” said Almeida, who wore the yellow-and-green colors of Brazil’s flag to the polls.

Social worker Nadja Oliveira, 59, said she had voted for da Silva before, but voted for Bolsonaro in 2018 and isn’t turning back.

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“Unfortunately, the Workers’ Party disappointed us. It promised to be different,” the Brasilia resident said.

Another voter Marialva Pereira swore off da Silva before, but is now coming back around.

“I didn’t like the scandals in his first administration, never voted for the Workers’ Party again. Now I will, because I think he was unjustly jailed and because Bolsonaro is such a bad president that it makes everyone else look better,” Pereira, 47, said from the country’s capital. 

Da Silva, a former union leader, was jailed before the 2018 election on corruption charges that were later thrown out. Many of his associates were jailed and his hand-picked successor Dilma Rousseff was impeached.

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Pundits have said da Silva’s win will be predicated on turnout, saying the candidate representing the Workers Party has a wider but less enthusiastic base than Bolsonaro.

Many questions remain about whether the election will remain peaceful. Multiple da Silva supporters have been murdered in the run-up to the election.

Gun-ownership has spiked since Bolsonaro — who has the backing of the police — took office.

With Post wires