Bolsonaro's son wins Brazil's first round, but Lisbon and Porto vote for Lula
Flávio Bolsonaro leads President Lula 47% to 45% and the two meet again on 25 October. A record 134,797 Brazilians registered to vote in Portugal, and in Lisbon and Porto they backed Lula by about fifteen points.
With almost every ballot counted, Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, the eldest son of the jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro, had 47.03% of the vote to 45.16% for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 80, who is seeking a fourth term. Polls had shown Lula slightly ahead. Neither reached 50%, so they face a run-off on 25 October. Observador puts Lula's gap at about 2.3 million votes, his weakest first round since 2002. Turnout was 78.9% of more than 158 million registered voters.
Bolsonaro's Liberal Party won 19 of the 54 Senate seats up for election. With nine senators already sitting, it will hold 28 of 81, the largest group. Michelle Bolsonaro was elected senator for Brasília with a record vote, and two of Jair's sons and his brother won seats as well. Flávio has promised an amnesty for his father, who is serving 27 years for plotting a coup, and for the rioters of 8 January 2023.
In Portugal the count went the other way. In the Lisbon consular area, which had the most voters, Lula took 14,948 votes (53.51%) to Bolsonaro's 10,548 (37.76%). In Porto he won by 10,356 to 7,559. Only the small Faro consulate went to Bolsonaro, by 1,305 votes to 1,097. Lisbon had about 79,000 registered voters, Porto more than 47,000 and Faro close to 9,000. Portugal is the second-largest polling area outside Brazil, after the United States.
Most of them stayed home. Voting is compulsory in Brazil for literate adults from 18 to 70, but abstention in Portugal reached 62%, against 21% in Brazil itself. Voters abroad choose only the president and vice-president, so they will be back at the polling stations on 25 October.