Brazil Votes as Lula Faces Flávio Bolsonaro in Election Shaped by Jair's Shadow

Brazilians cast their ballots on Sunday in a general election whose presidential race is dominated by two very familiar political names. Voting ended at 17:00 local time in Brasília (20:00 GMT), and the country's extensive electronic voting system was expected to produce results within hours. The incumbent, veteran left-wing leader Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, is seeking another term against 11 challengers, the most prominent being right-winger Flávio Bolsonaro.

The contest carries echoes of the last election four years ago, when Lula narrowly defeated Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio's father. That vote was followed by a turbulent period in which the elder Bolsonaro was convicted of plotting a coup after thousands of his supporters stormed Brazil's Congress. The fallout has left a lasting mark on the country's political landscape and continues to shape the current campaign.

Central to this election is a man who is not on the ballot. Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing former army captain who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2023, is barred from running for office. The 71-year-old is also serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup following his 2022 defeat by Lula. Because of recurrent health problems, he is under house arrest rather than in prison, and restrictions bar him from posting on social media or making public statements.

Even so, his influence is unmistakable. At the event where Flávio Bolsonaro formally launched his presidential campaign, an AI-generated avatar of Jair Bolsonaro appeared on screen to endorse his son's candidacy. When the Supreme Court pressed him about the deepfake, Jair Bolsonaro's lawyers may have denied that he had authorized its use. Yet there is little doubt that Flávio Bolsonaro enjoys his father's backing, and the episode illustrates how the former president's shadow – and sometimes his moving, talking image – hangs over the race.

The polls point to a tight, two-person contest. Although 12 candidates are running for the presidency, only Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro have reached double digits in the opinion surveys. BBC Brasil's poll tracker shows both men hovering around the 40% mark, with Lula holding a slight advantage. The remaining candidates are polling at 4% or less, leaving them far behind the front-runners.

Under Brazilian electoral rules, a candidate must win more than 50% of valid votes in the first round to avoid a run-off. If no one crosses that threshold on 4 October, the top two contenders will meet again on 25 October. The polls suggest a second round is highly likely, though an outright victory cannot be entirely ruled out given the relatively large number of voters who remained undecided in the final days before the election.

BBC Brasil's poll aggregator indicated that at the end of September, 9% of voters were still undecided or planned to spoil their ballot, cast a blank ballot, or abstain altogether. That pool of uncertain voters adds a layer of unpredictability to a race in which the leading candidates are separated by a narrow margin. With polls typically surveying only thousands of people, the final result can differ considerably from the indications provided by surveys.

Turnout is another significant factor. Voting is compulsory in Brazil for literate citizens aged between 18 and 70, and those who fail to cast a ballot face a fine. Brazilians aged 16 and older are entitled to vote. Almost 160 million people are eligible to participate in this election, making it one of the largest democratic exercises in the world.

Lula, the 80-year-old candidate of the left-wing Workers' Party, is no stranger to the presidency. He has held the office three times already, serving two consecutive terms from January 2003 to December 2010. During that period, he earned widespread praise for lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty, largely through a cash-transfer programme known as Bolsa Família. He left office with record approval ratings of more than 80%.

His later years, however, were clouded by legal troubles. His party was rocked by major corruption scandals, and Lula himself spent more than 18 months in prison between 2018 and 2019 after being convicted of corruption and money laundering. He has always denied the charges, and his convictions were later annulled, clearing the way for his political comeback.

In his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, Lula emphasized his country's sovereignty, a theme that has become central to his campaign as he seeks to frame the election as a choice about Brazil's place in the world and its democratic direction.

Flávio Bolsonaro, by contrast, is campaigning as the inheritor of his father's political movement, even as he seeks to broaden its appeal. The launch of his candidacy featured the AI-generated endorsement from his father, an unusual intervention that underscored both the family's enduring hold on the Brazilian right and the legal constraints surrounding the former president.

The race has unfolded against the backdrop of the 2022 election's violent aftermath. The storming of Congress by Jair Bolsonaro's supporters and his subsequent conviction for plotting a coup have become defining events in contemporary Brazilian politics. Those events color how voters view both the Bolsonaro name and the institutional stakes of this election.

With the electronic voting system expected to deliver results quickly, Brazilians and observers around the world now await the outcome of a contest that pits the country's most prominent left-wing figure against the son of his most prominent right-wing rival. Whether the vote is decided on Sunday or heads to a run-off later this month, the result will shape Brazil's political trajectory for years to come.