Lula secures win by 4.4 million votes as Bolsonaro concedes

Brazil’s right-wing Liberal Party formally accepted the outcome of the presidential election on Monday, marking a shift in stance from its candidate who had vowed to overturn the results.

Valdemar Costa Neto, the party leader, issued a statement confirming their recognition of the vote while noting that concerns regarding the process still need clarification. This move followed a decisive loss for Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who trailed incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by more than 4.4 million votes.

Lula secured over 64.25 million votes compared to Bolsonaro’s 59.83 million. Despite the margin, Bolsonaro had not formally conceded until his party’s statement, arguing that a last-minute change to voting hours unfairly disadvantaged his supporters.

The dispute centers on a two-hour extension ordered by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin on Sunday. Bolsonaro’s campaign cited heavy rains in the southern region that blocked voters from reaching polling stations, while Lula’s team argued that reduced public transit services in some cities hindered their working-class base.

Bolsonaro criticized Zanin, who had served as Lula’s personal lawyer before being appointed to the high court in 2023. In a speech on Sunday, Bolsonaro described the decision as a mid-game rule change requested by a former partner. He stated he would take legal action to annul the elections.

Pedro Burgos, a professor at the Insper educational institute, calculated that the extension resulted in only 35,000 additional votes nationwide. This figure represented less than 0.03 percent of the total, a number far smaller than the gap between the two candidates.

US President Donald Trump weighed in on the results on Monday, telling reporters the vote appeared rigged. He noted that elections must be indisputable and that the situation looked very bad, though he stopped short of declaring he would take sides in the dispute.

Bolsonaro’s refusal to accept the loss has drawn comparisons to his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president from 2019 to 2023. The elder Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence on coup-related charges after refusing to acknowledge his 2022 defeat.

On Monday, Flavio Bolsonaro announced that federal police had asked him to hand over his passports amid speculation he might leave the country. He said he would comply and had no plans to depart, adding that he intended to organize the opposition to withstand the chaos.

Reports from the Brazilian news outlet Folha de S Paulo indicated that legal advisers have convinced Bolsonaro to abandon his quest to annul the loss. They cited the large victory margin and the validation of the results by the Supreme Court and election authorities.