The polling stations closed this Sunday in Brazil after the first return of the presidential confronting the far-right Jair Bolsonaro and the leftist Lula da Silva, favorite in the polls.
The voting centers closed at 5:00 p.m. local time (20:00 GMT), but those who remained in line at the time of closing will be able to vote, according to the electoral authorities. The results are expected in the next few hours.
Only a few minutes passed after the opening of the presidential voting in Brazil so that the two strongest contenders, Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da SilvaThey will get up early to cast their vote.
Bolsonaro went to vote in a electoral college in the Military Village of Rio de Janeiro, assuring that he will win the elections in the first round, while Lula da Silva voted in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a city in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, stating that the country needs to “recover the right to be happy.”
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Dressed in a yellow sports shirt with a green collar and the national flag emblazoned across the chest, and apparently, wearing a bulletproof vest underneathJaír Bolsonaro, after leaving the electoral college, indicated that “we are calm (…) in the first round, the elections are decided today.”
For his part, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the great favorite in the polls, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo where he began his political career, told journalists after voting that “The country needs to recover the right to be happy. We want a country that lives in peace, with hope and that believes in the future.”
Lula voted accompanied by his wife, Rosângela da Silva, known as “Janja”, and some members of the progressive Workers’ Party (PT).
In his statement to journalistsLula criticized the current president’s management during the pandemicJair Bolsonaro, who is seeking re-election.
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The latest voting intention polls, released on Saturday, place Bolsonaro fourteen points away from the favorite candidate, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Who could win in the first round?
In the event that none of the candidates reaches more than half of the valid votes, the two most voted will have to face each other in a second round scheduled for October 30.
Lula said that they are the “most important” elections for him, who governed for two terms, between 2003 and 2010, after having lost the elections in 1989, 1994 and 1998.
