Lula and Bolsonaro head to second round in Brazil’s presidential election | news

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) is counting votes from Sunday’s elections in the South American country, and has indicated that there will be a second presidential runoff between top-voted candidates Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro.

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As per the schedule fixed by the Election Commission, the second round is scheduled to be held on October 30.

With 99.97 percent of tally sheets examined, candidate and leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) Lula received 48.42 percent, representing 57,238 .986 votes, the agency said on its web portal.

In turn, the current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, received 43.20 percent, i.e. 51,068,260 votes.

In third place, candidate Simone Tebet got 4.16 percent and former minister Ciro Gomez got 3.04 percent. Other applicants have so far achieved less than 1 percent.

For his part, the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, presented the balance of the day and reiterated that “mathematically it is already defined that there will be a ballot”.

“We conducted the elections with complete peace throughout the day, which does not mean that there were not some isolated incidents like any other election, but we reached the end of the day with the conviction that electoral justice once again fulfilled its constitutional mandate. Security and transparency must be guaranteed in the elections,” he asserted. .

Brazilian society has demonstrated its democratic maturity. Male and female voters went to the polling booths to vote and choose their candidates in complete peace and safety. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who participated in this event. Democracy”.

“Compared to the 2018 election, we had half the blank and null ballots, for example, we had 8.8. So today, 4.20 percent of the 80 percent that participated, which is about 7,500,000 of those who attended to vote for the candidates. , they stopped to vote null or blank. Maybe it’s equal or It could be a polarized election, that’s why people voted more,” he declared.

After securing a second round of elections, Lula thanked those who voted for him and promised to continue working to win the election and restore Brazil.

For his part, Bolsonaro said they will speak to show the “better side” of the people.

Polling stations opened at 08:00 local time (11:00 GMT) and closed at 17:00 (20:00 GMT), with more than 156 million eligible voters ready to exercise their right to vote.

A candidate who gets more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential election can win. Otherwise, there will be a second round between the two candidates with the most support, which will take place on October 30.

On this day, 27 governors, 583 representatives, one-third of the Senate are elected, and representatives in the legislatures are renewed.