Notable cases

Reactions to potential coup

On 26 July, the faculty of law of the University of São Paulo launched a pro-democracy petition as a response to Bolsonaro's criticism of the electronic ballots and the Brazilian voting system in general with over 3,000 signatures, among intellectuals, artists, law experts including retired justices of the Supreme Federal Court, businesspeople, and others.^[204] On 30 July, the petition topped 540,000 signatures, and four days later reached 700,000 endorsements.^[205][206]

On 17 August, a report by Brazilian newspaper Metrópoles leaked an online conversation by a group of pro-Bolsonaro businessmen who expressed their preference for a coup d'état rather than a return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency. The businessmen stated that the Supreme Federal Court and the Superior Electoral Court were suspected of election fraud, and proposed that a separate commission recount the votes. The messages also showed that business leader José Koury floated the idea of paying a bonus to employees who voted according to their employers' interests, if it were legal, and that malls chain businessman José Isaac Peres ordered "thousands of little flags" to be distributed to shopkeepers and customers in Barra World Shopping, one of his company's malls. In response to the report, the businessmen declared their support for democracy and denied any encouragement of illegal activity.^[207][208]

On 23 August, by order of the Supreme Federal Court, the Federal Police carried out search and seizure warrants on the homes, offices, and other properties of the businessmen who allegedly supported a potential coup, including Koury, Peres, and billionaire Luciano Hang, among others.^[209] The court also ordered a freeze in their bank and social media accounts, their testimonies, and access to their financial records. The businessmen stated that this order constituted political persecution and an attack on their freedom of speech.^[210]

In the first round

Despite some city administrations and Senator Randolfe Rodrigues asking the Supreme Federal Court to grant free rides for voters on election day,^[224][225] Porto Alegre, a major city in southern Brazil whose mayor was a Bolsonaro supporter, announced that it was going to cut free travel passes because of "budgetary costs" for the first time in 25 years;^[226] after intense scrutiny by critics and politicians, it gave up on the plan. On 29 September, the Supreme Federal Court issued an injunction blocking public transportation operations from being reduced on election day.^[227][228]

On 1 October, the Bolsonaro campaign asked the Superior Electoral Court to immediately block free travel passes in the public transportation system, arguing that the Supreme Federal Court's previous decision would hurt the cities' finances since the costs of free rides on election day were allegedly not anticipated and previously agreed upon by their legislatures. The Superior Electoral Court rejected the request, saying that no additional costs were created for the cities.^[229][230]

In the second round

On 30 October, reports spread on social media of Federal Highway Police (PRF) engaging in unusual patterns of stops in poorer areas of the country that were expected to favour Lula,^[242] leading to calls for the close-of-polling hour to be pushed back. The number of police searches of vehicles was 80 percent higher than had been recorded on 2 October, the day of the first round of voting, and directly violated an order from Superior Electoral Court president Alexandre de Moraes to suspend such activities on Election Day.^[243] Stops disproportionately took place in the Northeast Region, which has historically recorded the strongest vote for the Workers' Party.^[244] Police roadblocks also created a traffic jam on the Rio–Niterói Bridge.^[245][246]

Workers' Party supporters immediately called the actions an attempt of electoral subversion. O Globo reported that the director of the PRF, Silvinei Vasques, had posted and then deleted a video on Instagram endorsing Bolsonaro the previous night.^[247] O Globo additionally reported that the operation had been discussed in the office of President Bolsonaro on 19 October, suggesting it was performed at his direction.^[248] Activists made an appeal to Moraes, who ordered an immediate halt to the operations and subpoenad Vasques; however, Moraes claimed the operations did not stop anyone from voting and rejected a request from the PT to extend voting hours beyond the 5 pm deadline.^[249] Vasques was then arrested on 10 August 2023.^[250]

First round

Local regression of polls conducted

Second round

Local regression of polls conducted

By federative unit

First round vote distribution

• 
  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) vote distribution
• 
  Jair Bolsonaro (PL) vote distribution
• 
  Simone Tebet (MDB) vote distribution
• 
  Ciro Gomes (PDT) vote distribution
• 
  Minor candidates receiving less than 1% of the popular vote

Second round vote change from first round

• 
  Lula's gain in vote share (by states) from the first round in the runoff
• 
  Bolsonaro's gain in vote share (by states) from the first round in the runoff

Presidential election results

While Lula received the most votes in the first round with a lead of five percentage points and narrowly missed being elected in the first round, the result proved disappointing for his supporters, as polls had suggested a lead of up to 15 points, and some predicted that he would be elected in the first round. Instead, Bolsonaro outperformed almost all published opinion polling. This was partly attributed to a significant number of supporters of minor candidates deciding to vote for Bolsonaro shortly before the election, along with a number of Bolsonaro supporters refusing to respond to pollsters in the view that pollsters were part of a "fake news establishment".^[257] Additionally, Brazil had last conducted a census in 2010, and a number of pollsters oversampled poorer voters who generally backed Lula. At the same time, this was the first time that the incumbent president attempting re-election did not receive the highest number of votes in the first round.^{[258][259][260]} Lula's performance marked the second best result for the Workers' Party in the first round of a presidential election, behind only his result in 2006, and represented the highest number of votes for a candidate in the first round of a Brazilian election.^[261]

For the second round, both Bolsonaro and Lula sought key endorsements.^[262] Bolsonaro was endorsed by former judge Sergio Moro and the governors of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo.^[263] Simone Tebet and Ciro Gomes, the most voted presidential candidates to not advance to the runoff, endorsed Lula,^[264] as did former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. While Tebet endorsed Lula, her party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement, was split and gave its leaders freedom of choice.^[265] In the second round, Lula received 50.90% of the votes to Bolsonaro's 49.10%,^{[266][267][268]} in what many observers called a comeback and leftist surge in the region.^{[269][270][271]} This result was narrower than expected but in line with polls showing a slight advantage for Lula.^{[272][273][274]} Some observers described it as a contested and crucial election due to its close results and impact.^[275][276] Incumbent presidents are allowed to run for re-election by a 1997 constitutional amendment, and Bolsonaro became the first incumbent president since then to not be re-elected.^[277][278] Lula became the first person to be elected president for a third term in Brazil,^[279] and the oldest person to assume the post at age 77 on his inauguration scheduled for 1 January 2023.^[280][281] Lula's 60 million votes surpassed his own 2006 record as the largest number of votes in a Brazilian election.^[282]

It was the closest presidential election in Brazil to date.^[283] In both rounds, Lula was the most voted candidate in the state of Amazonas and the country's bellwether, Minas Gerais, where Bolsonaro had been the most voted in 2018. A shift was also observed among urban voters in the Southeast Region. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro had obtained 66.4% of the vote in 2018, but only 52.7% in 2022.^[284] In the city of São Paulo, he obtained 60.4% in 2018, but Lula flipped the city in 2022 and received 53.5% of the vote.^[285] Steven Levitsky, author of How Democracies Die, commented that Bolsonaro's allies acknowledging Lula's victory helped to avoid a 6 January scenario, referencing the 2021 United States Capitol attack, and that Brazil managed the election in a better way than the United States did in 2020.^[286] Some observers, such as Thomas Traumann, compared the results to Joe Biden's victory in 2020, and said that Lula was inheriting a nation that was much divided. Bolsonaro's better-than-expected performance reflected an election year with increased government spending. Political scientist Carlos Melo compared the election to the political climate experienced by the former president Dilma Rousseff's reelection bid in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election.^[287]

Both presidential candidates in the second round received a higher percentage of the votes than they did in the first round in every state, and Bolsonaro's increase was greater than Lula's also in every state. Amapá was the only state where the most voted candidate was different between the first round (Lula) and the second round (Bolsonaro). It was the first presidential election when more people voted in the second round than in the first round, and both rounds had the lowest percentage of invalid votes in a presidential election since the two-round system was introduced in 1989.^[288] The second round was the first time when votes from abroad exceeded those in a Brazilian state (Roraima).^[256]

Congressional election results

In the National Congress of Brazil, right-wing parties expanded their majority, while centrist and left-wing parties elected fewer members, despite the Workers' Party-led coalition gaining seats, continuing the trend from the 2018 Brazilian general election.^[289] Several small parties did not satisfy the minimum number of elected members to obtain access to public funds, broadcast time, and congressional leadership. To satisfy the requirement, these members could choose to individually join larger parties, or their parties could merge. The goal of this requirement, first established in 2018, was to reduce the large number of parties in Congress and facilitate political negotiations between them.^[290]

The growth of the right-wing parties in Congress was cited as a potential roadblock to Lula's policy goals upon taking office.^[287] Despite right-wing shifts in both chambers, a number of conservative incumbents were not elected for the same or other offices, including Douglas Garcia, Janaina Paschoal, and Fabricio Queiroz. A number of milestones took place in the election for Congress, including two transgender activists, Erika Hilton and Duda Salabert, who became the first transgender individuals elected to Congress, and five self-declared indigenous Brazilians were elected as deputies (including Sônia Guajajara and Célia Xakriabá) and two as senators (Wellington Dias and Hamilton Mourão), the largest number of self-declared indigenous candidates elected to Congress to date.^[291][292]

In Brazil

After 90% of the votes were counted in the second round, the Superior Electoral Court declared Lula as mathematically elected.^[293] After this result, Lula stated: "Today the only winner is the Brazilian people. This isn't a victory of mine or the Workers' Party, nor the parties that supported me in campaign. It's the victory of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious."^[287] In his victory speech, he also called for "peace and unity" and said: "It is in no one's interest to live in a divided nation in a permanent state of war."^[277] Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was elected against Lula in presidential elections in 1994 and 1998, congratulated Lula by stating that "democracy has won". Journalist Fernando Gabeira, an opponent of the military dictatorship in Brazil, called the election "a victory for Brazil, and a victory for humanity. We can now breathe again."^[294]

Bolsonaro's first speech after his loss

Bolsonaro did not immediately publicly concede or comment on the election result,^{[267][295][296]} which raised the widely discussed concerns prior to the election that he might reject the result like Donald Trump did in the United States in 2020.^[197] Privately, Bolsonaro only acknowledged the result to the president of the Superior Electoral Court Alexandre de Moraes,^[297] and he remained silent as transition talks began.^[298] On 1 November, Minister of Communications, Fabio Faria, told Reuters that Bolsonaro would not contest the election result and would address the nation later in the day.^[299] Chief of Staff of the Presidency, Ciro Nogueira Lima Filho, also confirmed that the incumbent government had already begun to establish contact with the future government led by Lula to discuss a transition.^[300] Vice president-elect Geraldo Alckmin was named as the representative of the future government. Alckmin confirmed that he would coordinate the transition and aimed to start it on 3 November.^[301]

Protests broke out in many states of Brazil after the election, as supporters of Bolsonaro alleged fraud and blockaded key roads, while demanding military intervention.^{[302][303][304]} In some cases, police did not intervene. Late on 31 October, Moraes ordered the Federal Highway Police to clear all the federal highways. Protesters also blockaded roads to the São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport on 1 November but were cleared by the Federal Highway Police.^[305] The blockades disrupted fuel and grain distribution, as well as the meat industry and rail network. The road to the Port of Paranaguá, an important grain export port, was blocked by protestors. The Brazilian Petroleum and Gas Institute stated that the situation regarding fuel distribution had become critical, and called on the federal government to form a crisis committee regarding the protests.^[306]

In a press conference at the Palácio da Alvorada on 1 November, Bolsonaro did not acknowledge the result but stated that he would "comply with the Constitution". Regarding the protests by his supporters, he referred to them as "the fruit of indignation and a sense of injustice of how the electoral process unfolded", while calling on them to remain peaceful and not block roads. Shortly after his speech, the Supreme Federal Court stated that by authorizing the transition of power he had recognized the results,^[307][308] paving the way for the transition two days after Lula was declared elected.^[309][310] Hours before the press conference, Bolsonaro met with the Brazilian Armed Forces to pitch the possibility of challenging Lula's election judicially, arguing that he would not be eligible due to his convictions in the Operation Car Wash, all of which had been annulled by the Supreme Federal Court in 2021.^[311] Bolsonaro could not find support for it, and members of the Army High Command reportedly accepted the results and were against any possibility of a military intervention or coup.^[312] The following day, Bolsonaro directly appealed to his protesting supporters to clear the roadblocks, while welcoming their decision to protest against the election results and asking them to do it through other means.^[281]

The Ministry of Defence released the report about the election audit done by the military on 10 November. While it cited some possible vulnerabilities in the electronic voting machines used for the election, it did not find any sign of voter fraud.^[313] On the following day, the Brazilian Armed Forces released a letter signed by leaders of all three branches, stating that all electoral disputes must be resolved through peaceful means, while adding that the Constitution permitted peaceful protests.^[314]

Bolsonaro meanwhile spent weeks after his defeat mostly alone in his presidential residence. On 22 November, he and his party formally contested the election result, after an audit revealed that electronic voting machines made before 2020, which comprised 59% of machines used in the 2022 election, lacked identification numbers in their internal logs. They requested that the Superior Electoral Court invalidate the votes recorded by the affected machines, which would result in Bolsonaro being elected with 51% of the remaining valid votes. However, experts claimed that the software error did not affect the election results and pointed out that the identification numbers did appear in the physical vote records printed by the machines.^[315] On the next day the court rejected the request and fined the party R$22.9 million (US$4.3 million) for what it considered bad faith litigation.^[316]

Lula's victory was officially certified on 12 December. On the same day, Bolsonaro supporters attacked the Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia, after the arrest of one of the protesters for inciting violence to prevent Lula from being sworn in.^[317] Benedito Gonçalves, general inspector of the Superior Electoral Court, opened an investigation against Bolsonaro, Walter Braga Netto and their allies for allegedly attempting to discredit the election result after a complaint by the coalition of parties supporting Lula.^[318] A Bolsonaro supporter was arrested for allegedly trying to bomb the Brasília International Airport on 24 December.^[319]

Bolsonaro left Brazil for the United States on 30 December in order to avoid taking part in the swearing-in ceremony of Lula, leaving Vice President Hamilton Mourão as the acting president.^[320] In his final speech before leaving, he complained that the election was not impartial, but condemned the violence over its results.^[321] His supporters stormed the buildings of the National Congress, Palácio do Planalto and the Supreme Federal Court on 8 January, ransacking them and clashing with the police. All three buildings were later cleared.^{[322][323][324]} with more than 1,500 people arrested.^[325] 684 of them were later released. Bolsonaro on 10 January claimed in a video that Lula had lost the election, but deleted it soon afterwards.^[326] The Justice Ministry stated that the police had found a draft decree authorizing Bolsonaro to overturn the elections while searching the house of his Justice Minister Anderson Torres.^[327] On 13 January, Moraes authorized including Bolsonaro in the investigation into the riots in Brasília.^[328]

Abroad

After Lula was declared elected, U.S. president Joe Biden offered his congratulations, commenting that he "looks forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead".^[329][330] European Union High Representative Josep Borrell congratulated Lula, stating that "Brazilian citizens went to the polls on 30 October to elect their new president in a peaceful and well-organised election".^[331] Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese tweeted: "Huge congratulations to [Lula] on a tremendous victory in the Brazilian elections. Look forward to working with you on protecting our global environment."^[332] British prime minister Rishi Sunak and German chancellor Olaf Scholz also congratulated Lula for his victory.^[333][334] Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau hailed Lula's victory and said he hopes "to strengthen the partnership between our countries and to advance shared priorities – like protecting the environment". Chinese president Xi Jinping congratulated Lula, adding that he was "willing to work with president-elect Lula, from a strategic and long-term perspective, to jointly plan and promote to a new level the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Brazil."^[335] Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador tweeted: "Lula won, blessed people of Brazil. There will be equality and humanism."^[336]

Lula was also congratulated by Argentine president Alberto Fernández and vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,^[277] Bolivian president Luis Arce,^[337] Chilean president Gabriel Boric, Colombian president Gustavo Petro,^[277][338] Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel,^[339] Czech president Miloš Zeman,^[340] Ecuadorian president Guillermo Lasso,^[341] Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi,^[342] French president Emmanuel Macron,^[343][344] Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis,^[345] Indian prime minister Narendra Modi,^[336] Irish president Michael D. Higgins,^[346] Israeli president Isaac Herzog,^[347] Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni,^[348] Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida,^[349] New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern,^[350] North Korean leader Kim Jong-un,^[351] Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas,^[352] Paraguayan president Mario Abdo Benítez,^[353] Portuguese prime minister António Costa and president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa,^[354] Russian president Vladimir Putin,^[355] South African president Cyril Ramaphosa,^[356] Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez,^[357] Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,^[358] Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy,^[282] Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou,^[359] and Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.^[360]

Some U.S. radical right personalities criticized the results and called them into question. Steve Bannon made unsubstantiated claims the election was "riddled with fraud" and called Bolsonaro the winner. Ali Alexander, who organized the Stop the Steal rally that directly preceded the January 6 United States Capitol attack, called on Bolsonaro supporters to protest and for the Brazilian military to implement a coup d'état.^{[361][362][363]} Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned the election results and alleged that doing so was not allowed in Brazil or in the U.S.^[364]

On 23 November, American daily newspaper The Washington Post reported that some allies of Donald Trump, such as former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon and Gettr CEO Jason Miller, have been advising and encouraging Bolsonaro's inner circle, including his re-elected lawmaker son Eduardo Bolsonaro, to challenge and dispute the presidential election results. The main goal is reportedly to keep Bolsonaro agitators in the streets targeting the legitimacy of Brazilian courts. Also, according to the Post, one of the meetings in which the conversations followed took place in Mar-a-Lago, with Trump himself present.^[365][366]