Lula wins Brazilian presidential election after Supreme Court justice ally extends voting for 2 hours 3 minutes before polling set to close

Socialist president and celebrity favorite Lula da Silva, 81, won a close race to continue in office on Sunday, gaining 51.78% of the vote, beating his right-wing opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, 45, who took home 48.21%. Lula had lost in the first round of voting and now won by more than 4 million votes. The results, however, were not above controversy.

After many polling places had closed, Lula went on TV to claim that his voters were being blocked from casting their votes. A judge with the Supreme Court, Justice Cristiano Zanin, a close ally of Lula's who served as his personal attorney, declared that polling places that were still open could stay open an extra two hours but that locations that were already closed could not reopen.

"The decision delayed tallying the votes by two hours. It was unclear how many polling stations stayed open after the scheduled closing time," PBS reports, noting the close ties between Zanin and Lula.

Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, was ahead in the first round of voting earlier this month, with 47% of the vote vs 45% for Lula, with Lula calling those results "unexpected." Bolsonaro said the way the election was handled was "unacceptable" in a statement saying that the results cannot be accepted.

The New York Times reported that Priscilla Sodre Pereira, an electoral lawyer, said, "This is an extremely serious, critical situation," as did three other electoral lawyers saying that the vote could be annulled. Fernnado Neisser, a professor of electoral law at a Brazillian research institute, said that if the margin is low and it can be shown that the polling stations in areas strongly favoring one candidate stayed open longer, the election could be annulled.

Bolsonaro has refused to concede and called for the election to be annulled. Zanin’s unilateral decision to allow polling places to stay open in areas favored heavily for Lula has been criticized, and it bypassed the decision being made by the Superior Electoral court.

The polling places that had already closed had powered down their voting machines and could not re-start them. In the northeastern state of Bahia, where Lula has a strong base, there were reports of public buses not being deployed and Lula asked for an extention there as well as in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state.

Some areas had flooding and power outages, prompting Bolsonaro to ask for extensions in 5 states, according to the Latin Times. These areas included Minas Gerais, considered a major swing state, and southern Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul, a strong area for Bolsonaro, according to Bloomberg.

There were severe weather and transportation issues in many parts of the country prompting both campaigns to request longer voting time. Bolsonaro called the last-minute extension "unacceptable," according to US News, and that it "changed the rules of the game in the middle of the game."

According to legal experts, if Bolsonaro would seek annulment of the results, he would face a high legal bar. The Supreme Court of Brazil has confirmed the election results, according to the BBC.

Lula’s campaign ran on resisting US involvement in Brazil, among other issues, such as increasing protections for the Amazon rainforest and lifting people out of poverty with socialist policies.

This will be Lula’s 4th, nonconsecutive term in office, and likely his last. He expressed gratitude for the Brazilian people and said, “No one is required to like the president-elect, but he must govern for everyone,” according to Fox News.

Bolsonaro ran on cutting taxes, crime reduction, reducing public spending, saying that Lula’s economic policies drove up the cost of living. President Trump did not officially endorse Bolsonaro but has had a close relationship with the Bolsonaro family.

Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula, who pursued his prosecution.

Brazil’s congress has been referred to as the most conservative in the country’s history, with a center-right and right-wing majority. The Bolsonaro movement is still considered influential within Brazilian politics.