A fierce battle raged until the last minute, even at the polls, between the outgoing president, the progressive Lula, and his challenger, the right-wing Trumpian leader Flavio Bolsonaro.

"Brazil cannot endure another four years of this, and the only alternative is me," the sovereignist candidate attacked after casting his ballot, along with his wife Fernanda, early in the morning in Rio's elegant Vila Isabel neighborhood. Shortly afterward, Lula responded: "The people will have to choose between strengthening democracy and barbarism. Between development and backwardness. Between economic growth and regression. The people are sovereign," he said outside the João Firmino Correia de Araújo State School, outside São Paulo, where the elderly leader has always voted.

But aside from the polemics between the two candidates, and a few boos and insults from Bolsonaro Jr., this first round of elections was conducted in a climate of absolute calm. Despite the strong political polarization and the absolute uncertainty surrounding the final outcome, there were large crowds at the polls, but no incidents.

Nearly 160 million Brazilians voted, plus approximately one million residents abroad. The fully automated electoral system worked flawlessly: due to technical problems, only 421 defective electronic ballot boxes out of a total of 568,000 were replaced.

The only disruptions came from bad weather, caused by Super El Niño, the extraordinary weather phenomenon currently affecting parts of South America. In Presidente Prudente, about 560 kilometers from São Paulo, a storm blew off the roof of a school, and polling stations were moved to the Faculty of Science and Technology at Unesp University. In other cities, power outages occurred at polling stations.

(Unioneonline)

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