Bolsonaro nears outright majority and forces runoff in Brazil

Bolsonaro nears outright majority and forces runoff in Brazil

The count in Brazil's presidential election began this Sunday with a figure that set off every alarm on the left: with 20% of the votes counted, the right-wing candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, was above 50% and within reach of a first-round victory. The first tallies gave him 11,520,790 votes against Lula da Silva's 9,168,405. The lead narrowed later, but the scare left its mark on the story.

As the count pogre, Bolsonaro's percentage kept falling. With 50% of polling stations counted he was down to 50.20%, and the trend in smaller districts began to favor Lula. The final result, with more than 99% counted, left the right-wing candidate at 47% and the leftist leader at 45%. The gap had vanished. There will be a runoff.

The specter of vote rigging and the fall below 50%

Bolsonaro's drop below the 50% threshold fueled suspicions of manipulation. In the final stretch of the count, Lula clawed back two million votes when the gap stood at four million. For some analysts, that swing is explained only by overseas and postal votes, which tend to favor the left. For others, it is proof of an opaque electoral system.

The results page of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) stopped updating the presidential count alone for about 40 minutes, between 19:06 and 20:08. Data for governors, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies kept coming in normally. The Brazilian newspaper Metrópoles reported that the TSE had given no explanation for the outage. In that interval, according to circulating tallies, Lula increased his votes by almost 8%.

Nobody knows anything, but everybody suspects. Brazil's electronic voting machines, presented as inviolable, are once again in the spotlight. The fraud allegations are not backed by public evidence, but the system's track record of opacity feeds the skepticism.

A country further to the right than it looks

Beyond the presidential race, the legislative and state election results draw a map clearly tilted to the right. According to confirmed figures, the right would govern 18 states, the center 3 and the left 6. In the Senate, the right holds 39 seats against 5 for the left. In the Chamber of Deputies, the ratio is 388 to 124.

That territorial and parliamentary dominance explains why many see Bolsonaro as the favorite going into the runoff. The country's third, fourth and fifth largest political forces are all right-wing. A left further left than Lula is practically nonexistent. The wind is blowing in his favor.

The economic burden: debt interest at 9% of GDP

The incoming government, whoever leads it, will have minimal room for maneuver. Brazil spends 9% of GDP on debt interest, one of the highest percentages in the world. Lula's promises of free-spending public money collide with that reality. Fiscal discipline will be unavoidable, and any attempt to expand spending will have to contend with the markets.

The share prices of Petrobras and Suzano have become the thermometer of expectations. Some investors see potential in Suzano, but only if it falls to half its current value and improves its debt reduction. The market does not forgive.

What will happen in the runoff?

The runoff will be held next Sunday. Bolsonaro is the clear favorite, according to analyses based on the legislative results and the territorial distribution of the vote. But the left is not giving up. The specter of new vote rigging hangs over the campaign. International observers have announced they will thoroughly review what peine in the first round.

The movie has only just begun. Brazil, on the road to freedom and order, according to some; on the road to chaos, according to others. The only certainty is that the count has left more questions than answers.