TSE Confirms Lula Won Presidential Runoff, Clinches Historic Fourth Term

Brazil’s electoral authority has confirmed that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Sunday’s presidential runoff, securing a historic fourth term after defeating Flávio Nantes Bolsonaro. According to the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, or TSE, Brazil’s top electoral court, Lula, of the Workers’ Party, or PT, and the coalition Brasil Pronto pra Mais, received 64,194,247 votes, or 51.77% of valid ballots. Flávio Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, or PL, won 59,799,105 votes, or 48.23%. The TSE’s official national results file showed 123,993,352 valid votes.

The result makes Lula the first president elected to a fourth term in Brazil’s modern democratic era. The 81-year-old PT leader previously governed from 2003 to 2010, then returned to office in 2023 after winning the 2022 election. His latest victory gives him another mandate at the head of Latin America’s largest country.

Lula’s win was also notable for how it happened. Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, had finished ahead in the first round earlier in October, but Lula reversed that result in the runoff. Reuters and other major international outlets described it as the first time in Brazil’s modern democratic period that a candidate trailing after the first round went on to win the presidency.

The race paired two figures closely tied to Brazil’s sharply polarized national politics. Lula has long been the dominant figure of the left-leaning PT, while Flávio Bolsonaro carried one of the country’s best-known conservative political names as the son of Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president before Lula’s current term. The runoff result means voters chose to keep Lula in office rather than hand power to a new Bolsonaro-led presidency.

The result was widely reported by international outlets including Reuters and The Associated Press, but the vote totals were set out in the TSE’s official count. Under Brazil’s constitutional timetable, Lula’s new presidential term is scheduled to begin with his inauguration on Jan. 5, 2027.