Brazil tallies votes in historic election race of Lula vs. Bolsonaro

The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil‘s top two presidential candidates were neck-and-neck late Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.

The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.

With 91.6% of votes counted, da Silva had 47.3%, ahead of Bolsonaro with 44.2%, according to the electoral authority.

It appears increasingly likely neither of the top two candidates will receive more than 50% of the valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots, which would mean a second round vote will be scheduled for Oct. 30.

“We will most likely have a second round,” said Nara Pav?o, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. “The probability of ending the election now (in the first round) is too small.”

Recent opinion polls had given da Silva a commanding lead _ the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

The election wound up being far tighter than anticipated, both in the presidential contest and those for governorships and congressional seats.

“The far-right has shown great resilience in the presidential and in the state races,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.