Brazilians vote in highly polarised election

Brazilians have voted in a highly polarised election that could determine if the country returns a leftist leader to run the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.

Anyone at voting stations before the formal closing at 5pm Brasilia time (2000 GMT) was still able to vote, authorities said, and long lines of people waited to cast their ballots in many cities.

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

There are nine other candidates, but their support pales in comparison to that for Mr Bolsonaro and Mr da Silva.

Mr Bolsonaro’s administration has been marked by incendiary speeches, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticised handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.

But he has built a devoted base by defending traditional family values, rebuffing political correctness and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.

Like several of its Latin American neighbours coping with high inflation and a vast number of people excluded from formal employment, Brazil is considering a shift to the political left.

Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Gabriel Boric in Chile and Pedro Castillo in Peru are among the left-leaning leaders in the region to have recently assumed power.

For this to happen, he would need more than 50% of valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots.

Brazil has more than 150 million eligible voters, and voting is mandatory, but abstention rates can reach up to 20%.

Analysts fear he has laid the groundwork to reject results.

At one point, the president claimed to possess evidence of fraud but failed to present any, even after the electoral authority set a deadline to do so.

Mr da Silva, 76, will vote in Sao Paulo state, where he was once a metalworker and union leader. He rose from poverty to the presidency and is credited with building an extensive social welfare programme during his 2003 to 2010 tenure that helped lift tens of millions into the middle-class.

But he is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in vast corruption scandals that entangled politicians and business executives.

The Supreme Court later annulled Mr da Silva’s convictions on the grounds that the judge was biased and had colluded with prosecutors.

Mr Bolsonaro, who will vote in Rio de Janeiro, grew up in a modest family before joining the army. He eventually turned to politics after being forced out of the military for openly pushing to raise servicemen’s pay. During his seven terms as a fringe lawmaker in Congress’ lower house, he regularly expressed nostalgia for the country’s two-decade military dictatorship.