The elections in Brazil took an interesting turn on Monday. The first round of voting that had conclusively stated that Lula would comfortably win the first round of voting was in a for a rude shock. 

The official figures on Monday stated that Lula was ahead of the incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, but not by much, 6.1 million to be exact. To put it in numbers, Lula managed to secure 48% of the votes while Bolsonaro secured 42%. The other remaining votes were held by the other candidates. 

Since Lula was not able to secure an outright majority (i.e >50%), so the polls would undergo a second round of voting, to be held on 30th October. 

These elections are one of the most polarizing ones seen by Brazilians in decades

Up until then, the race to attain the endorsement from the other presidential candidates would also be key. Since Brazil follows the two-round system of voting, the second round would only hold elections between Bolsonaro and Lula. 

It looks like the third party candidates, there was one that got 3%, there was Gomez, who got two and a half per cent. Most of those votes most likely may go to Lula. Now, there's obviously a lot of negotiating in the back doors and things like that, but it's most likely that a certain percentage that is going to go to Lula. In fact, people were trying to convince Cito Gomez in the lead-up to the elections to just say, I'm going to bow out, and then endorsed Lula as a way to try and help him over the 50% mark. So it's very possible that's going to help. The other thing is you have to remember that Bolsonaro has a rejection rating in the country of over 50%. So over 50% of the population says they do not support him and would never vote for him. But of course, that doesn't include the percentage of the people that are voting is less than that, obviously, but so there's a lot of questions looking forward and the campaigns are going to get really intense, I think.

However, even if Lula is ahead by 6 million or so, Bolsonaro would go to the second round upbeat as his party was able to comfortably secure a majority in the Senate. Winning 19 out of 27 seats gives an opportunity for Bolsonaro to go to the next round feeling confident about his chances. His party also showed great numbers in the lower house as well.

Bolosonaro's former environment minister, who resigned in the midst of an investigation into whether he had helped the export of illegally cut timber from the Amazon, and his former health minister, a general who oversaw the troubled management of the pandemic, were among the notable winners in the lower house.

Sergio Moro, the former justice minister under Bolsonaro and the judge who imprisoned Lula for a brief period of time, also bucked the odds to gain a Senate seat.

Bolsonaro’s troublesome opinions on homosexuality and his impassioned religious conservatism have certainly raised eyebrows all over the world. But Christianity has a strong hold on Brazilian society and Bolsonaro hopes that the support would see him carry over the finish line.

Bolsonaro says he would not accept the election result if he loses

Bolsonaro can still lose, comfortably. But the aftermath of that election result is anyone’s guess. Often referred to as the Brazilian Trump, Bolsonaro hinted that he would not accept the election results if he were to lose.  When someone is mirroring Trump’s antics to a tee, you know you have a potential problem on your hands.

And if you thought that Lula was something of a saint, then you’re terribly wrong. Corruption scandals rocked the Lula Presidentship in the scandal famously called the Mensalão scandal. In the last Presidential elections held in 2018, Lula could not contest, because he was suspended on convictions of corruption. 

The world waits with bated breath if Bolsonaro is successful in breaking the winning streak of left-wing parties in South America. Bolsonaro has defied expectations in the first round, could he do the same in the second round too? Only time will tell.

The elections in Brazil got interesting; interestingly bad for Lula

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