Bolsonaro leads the count in Brazil: he exceeds 50% of the votes with 28% counted

São PauloJair Bolsonaro's son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), defeats the president and candidate for reelection, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party), at the beginning of the vote count of the first round of the Brazilian elections. With 28% of the ballots counted, the firstborn of the Bolsonaro clan has 50.85% of the support, compared to 41.05% for the 80-year-old veteran leader, who has become a symbol of resistance for the Latin American left. The partial triumph of the far-right is based, for the moment, on the strategic vote, since the other candidates from across the right-wing spectrum have accumulated less than 5% of the votes.

Traditionally, at the start of the count, the Southern states, where the far right concentrates a higher percentage of votes, have a greater weight, which is why there is still room for the result to turn around.

With Lula da Silva in power, who is seeking the last reelection of his long career, internal democratic normality returned this Sunday –the interference of the United States, however, has hovered over the entire electoral process–, in a harsh clash with Bolsonaro.

The last time Brazilians stood before an electronic ballot box to elect a new president, in October 2022, the Federal Highway Police (PRF) carried out massive road closures with traffic checkpoints in the northeast region, which is the great electoral stronghold of the left, to suppress the vote for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Supreme Court and the Federal Police considered these blockades as part of the attempted coup d'état, for which the then-president, Jair Bolsonaro, now imprisoned, was sentenced to a 27-year prison term.

On social media, the constant polarization of the last eight years has been more present than ever throughout the day, fueled by flawed algorithms: with posts ranging from personal disqualifications and fake news in a very harsh tone, mass-spread by far-right bots, to subtle irony and memes, as it is well known that Brazilians are renowned for their creativity in this area.

At the polling stations, however, the climate has been calmer, at least in general terms. Even so, former president Dilma Rousseff, who suffered an impeachment in 2016 and is now president of the BRICS Development Bank, was harassed by Bolsonaro supporters when she voted in Belo Horizonte. A similar situation was experienced by Fernando Haddad, Minister of Finance this term and the PT candidate for governor of São Paulo.

Virgin Mary T-shirts

There have been many queues, some exceeding an hour in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in a country where voting is mandatory for those between 18 and 70 years old and where, this time, the voting receipt from the first round served as proof of life for all retirees and pensioners who receive Social Security benefits, a sector in which Lula prevails over the far right.

The process required a lot of patience. Voters have had to confirm up to six candidates at the electronic ballot box, who are listed by number, because this Sunday they have chosen, apart from the president, two senators, a deputy to Congress, the governor, and a regional deputy.

As in the last two presidential elections, there has been a re-edition of the chromatic battle at the polling stations. The absolute majority has been for Brazilian football teams, which are usually part of the Sunday attire of Brazilians, even though there was no Brasileirão league matchday today. L’ARA has witnessed this at various voting points in São Paulo, the largest city in the country.

The far right insists on making the t-shirt its own green and yellow, of the Brazilian national football team –which, by the way, is experiencing one of the worst moments in its history–, as one of the symbols. Left-wing militants wore the traditional red attire, many of them with the image of Lula –which is not prohibited by electoral justice– and with adaptations communists of football team shirts. Quite a few have been seen in São Paulo of Corinthians, the club of which Lula da Silva is a staunch supporter. Four years ago, the organized supporters (cheering section) of the São Paulo team opened the blockades on many federal highways of the far-right coup plotters who did not accept the return of the left to power.

The war of religion that has marked the final stretch of the electoral campaign has reached the very ballot boxes this time. The news that, in the event of reaching the Planalto Palace, Flávio Bolsonaro (reconverted to evangelicalism) would strip the Virgin of Aparecida, a black image venerated since 1717, of her status as the country's patron saint, has translated into a Catholic mobilization.

This Sunday, the Brazilian Bishops' Conference published a message in which it defended sovereignty –one of Lula's arguments in the face of Donald Trump's support for Flávio Bolsonaro–: “We entrust our homeland to the protection of the Virgin Mary”. For the first time, Catholics, mainly elderly women, have been seen going to vote wearing t-shirts with the image of Aparecida, which have become an electoral symbol.