Brazil's Lula overtakes Bolsonaro in presidential runoff

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva overtook right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro in a runoff, with half of votes counted and ballots from left-leaning states in Mr Lula's ‌northeastern stronghold starting to ⁠pour in.

Pollsters said higher-than-expected turnout appeared to have boosted Mr Lula.

The federal electoral court has yet to call a ‌victor, but Mr Lula allies were already claiming victory on social media.

Brazil's conservative candidates ⁠typically perform well early in the count, with ‌leftists' performance improving as votes from poorer, populous states ⁠in ‌the northeast start arriving later.

Mr Lula started strongly, and although Mr Bolsonaro overtook him, Mr Lula snapped back with around 50% of votes counted ⁠by 8:30pm in Brasilia (11.30pm Irish time).

A victory for Mr Bolsonaro, 45, would extend a wave of right-wing victories for Latin American candidates friendly to US President Donald Trump, while a fourth mandate for Mr Lula would be a bulwark against Washington's influence in the region as his government has pushed back on US trade and security policies.

Yet the contest threatens to be overshadowed by legal disputes after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, who was formerly Mr Lula's lawyer, accepted a request by his campaign to extend voting, pointing to public transportation issues in three cities in the state of Bahia.

Mr Zanin's decision landed right around the election's 5pm Brasilia time (8pm Irish time) cutoff, creating confusion as some polling stations had already closed.

In a subsequent ruling, Mr Zanin said those stations would remain shut, allowing authorities to begin tallying those votes, but that polling stations that had not closed after the official cutoff could keep receiving voters for an additional two hours.

Mr Zanin's ruling led the electoral court, or TSE, to pause the count for two hours.

Pause adds uncertainty

The unexpected voting extension injects uncertainty into a Brazilian electoral process still grappling with the fallout from 2022, when Jair Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat to Mr Lula.

His supporters later invaded government buildings in protest against the result, and Bolsonaro received a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup.

Two legal experts told Reuters the extension of voting hours and allegations around disrupted public transportation could draw legal challenges.

"Depending on the election result, there is a possibility that the losing side might attempt to contest the outcome, arguing that many people were unable to vote even with the extended deadline," said Vera Chemim, a constitutional lawyer in Sao Paulo.

The senator's brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, speaking on a livestream on his YouTube channel, questioned why the Supreme Court had ruled in a process overseen by the country's federal electoral court.

"Strange, isn't it?" he said. "It's hard to imagine what the legal basis for this could possibly be. It doesn't inspire credibility."

Mr Lula had asked electoral authorities to extend voting in at least nine states after his campaign alleged some officials reduced election-day public transportation, impacting voters' ability to get to the polls.

Earlier, a court in Bahia, a stronghold for Mr Lula in the northeast, ordered the arrest of a top transportation official in the city of Salvador over allegations that he directed a reduction in the city's bus fleet.

In comments before the decision, Mr Lula said "something abominable is happening" in this election.

Flavio Bolsonaro had also asked for voting to be extended in at least three states, citing bad weather.

Washington is watching

Mr Lula and his allies see the runoff as a chance to stem Latin America's conservative drift.

Mr Trump has so far declined to endorse a candidate. Asked who he hoped would win, the US president declined to say.

"I don't want to get into that, but we are watching," he told reporters in Washington.