Brazil's Superior Electoral Court formally proclaimed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the winner of Sunday's presidential runoff on Sunday night, closing the book on one of the most polarized elections in the country's history with a final, certified count.
TSE President Kassio Nunes Marques announced the result at 9:55 p.m. in Brasília, congratulating Lula on his fourth term and declaring that democracy and the population were the real winners. He praised the international observers who monitored the vote and defended the integrity of Brazil's electronic voting system.
The final numbers
With 100 percent of polling sections counted, the TSE's official national file recorded Lula with 64,256,232 votes — 51.79 percent of valid votes — against 59,826,041 votes, or 48.21 percent, for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. The margin was 4,430,191 votes.
Lula, who turns 81 on Tuesday, becomes the first president in Brazil's modern democratic era to win a fourth term — and the first candidate since the country's return to democracy to win the presidency after finishing second in the first round. Flávio Bolsonaro had led the October 4 first round with 47.03 percent against Lula's 45.16 percent.
The two-hour extension that fueled the dispute
The count was briefly thrown into turmoil on election day when Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ordered voting extended by two hours, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., after Lula's campaign complained that reduced public transport was preventing voters from reaching polling stations in several states. The TSE paused the national count while the change was implemented.
Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign objected to the extension, and his campaign chief, Rogério Marinho, denounced the measure as a "judicial coup." Electoral authorities also detained Salvador's mobility secretary over alleged impediments to voters. Nunes Marques defended the decision on Sunday night, calling it difficult and unusual but insisting the court carried it out without prejudice to the voter or the final result.
Flávio Bolsonaro has refused to concede the result and has vowed to seek its annulment — a fight that now runs against a formally proclaimed result.
Court orders Meta and X to explain themselves
In a separate move with implications far beyond this election, the TSE ordered Meta and X to explain within 24 hours how their algorithms and artificial intelligence tools affected the distribution of political content during the campaign, warning of daily fines for noncompliance. Meta acknowledged technical mistakes in deactivating some pro-government ads.
What happens next
Lula is scheduled to be inaugurated in Brasília on January 5, 2027. He will face a more conservative Congress that could slow his agenda — and a White House that, as of Sunday evening, had still not commented on the result.
Fuentes: TSE, JBizNews, The Times, CNN, Reuters, Particle News.