Brazil will go to the ballot after the surprising result of Bolsonaro, who is on Lula’s heels

The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, obtained this Sunday a surprising 43% of the votes in the first electoral round, hot on the heels of former left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received 47%, the electoral authority reported.

The result, with 97% of the schools counted, forces a ballot on October 30. Polls gave Lula a wide lead over Bolsonaro on the eve of the dispute, the most polarized in decades in Latin America’s largest country.