The result defied opinion polls that had predicted a slight lead for the incumbent left-wing president. Flavio Bolsonaro, the 45-year-old son of former President Jair Bolsonaro who is currently serving a 27-year jail sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, told reporters in Brasilia: "Brazil wants change, and I am very happy with the results." He hailed "the end of the era of [Lula’s] Workers’ Party."
Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said Lula faces an uphill battle. "Not only is he behind now after this first round, 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," Stuenkel told Al Jazeera.
About 21 percent of the electorate – roughly 30 million Brazilians – did not vote in the first round. Al Jazeera's Monica Yanakiew, reporting from Rio de Janeiro, said Lula supporters felt their candidate had not used social media as effectively as the right-wing camp and would need to improve that for the second round.
From a historical perspective, however, Stuenkel said such efforts are unlikely to change the outcome: "Unless something very unusual happens in the next three weeks, 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."