Brazil Heads For Runoff Vote With President Bolsonaro Trailing
NDTV
Brazil Elections: Jair Bolsonaro, 67, garnered 43 percent of Sunday's first-round votes compared to 48 percent for leftist frontrunner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Brazil entered the final stretch of a deeply polarized presidential race Monday after an inconclusive first voting round put far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in an unexpectedly strong position.
Bolsonaro, 67, garnered 43 percent of Sunday's first-round votes compared to 48 percent for leftist frontrunner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- a five-point difference that polls had predicted would be a much larger gap of 14 points.
Ex-president Lula, 76, had appeared to be within arm's reach of taking the election in the first round with more than 50 percent of the vote -- but the race now heads to a October 30 runoff.
Not only Bolsonaro surpassed expectations: many allies of his "God, country and family" brand of conservative politics also performed better than poll predictions in congressional and gubernatorial races.
