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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Kate Lyons

Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins presidential vote – as it happened

We’re going to wrap up the live blog covering today’s election. Thanks for your company reading along over the last eight hours. Thanks especially to my brilliant colleagues in Brazil: Tom Phillips and Dom Phillips.

It’s been a dramatic, though not entirely unexpected, night as Bolsonaro secured enough votes to become the next president. As for what is next for the country under his leadership, that is anyone’s guess.

I’ll close with this assessment of the situation from our Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips, who spent a “long and deeply disturbing” day in São Paulo today. He writes:

I met many generous and kind Bolsonaro voters on Avenida Paulista tonight. It’d be untrue and unfair to say otherwise. I was also profoundly disturbed by the menace and testosterone that hung in the air.

Brazil has been a huge part of my life for nearly 20 years. After spending tonight on Avenida Paulista it devastates me to say this, but: Brazil is in very big trouble indeed.

Summary

  • Jair Bolsonaro has been elected as the next president of Brazil, winning 55.1% of the vote in the second-round vote between himself and PT candidate Fernando Haddad.
  • The far-right candidate was leading in the polls after he fell just short of achieving a majority in the first round of voting three weeks ago.
  • His win on Sunday night has alarmed progressives, given his previous comments supporting torture and calling for political opponents to be shot. As well as comments disparaging women, minorities and LGBT people.
  • In a televised victory speech, Bolsonaro said “We are going to change the destiny of Brazil” but also extended an olive branch, saying he was going to govern for all Brazilians regardless of orientation, opinion or colour.
  • Bolsonaro supporters celebrated in the streets across the country. Military police and other military personnel were hailed as heroes.
  • World leaders including Donald Trump offered their congratulations to Bolsonaro, though the leader of Venezuela, a country Bolsonaro has been highly critical of, offered very guarded praise, urging Bolsonaro to work toward having peaceful and harmonious relations with other countries.

Thousands of Jair Bolsonaro supporters have packed Avenida Paulista tonight, among them babies, toddlers, teenagers and the elderly.

Many of them are euphoric. “We think he can get the train back on the tracks,” said Iago Bünger, a 19-year-old student.

Members of Sao Paulo’s police force are posing for photographs with revellers on their motorbikes and striking hard-man poses for the cameras. Crowds cheer: “Viva the military police!” as officers drive past in cars or on their bikes.

Huge amounts of beer was being consumed and Jair Bolsonaro t-shirts were selling like hotcakes including some that read: “Hard to kill” – a reference to the recent attempt to assassinate him.

But there is also nervousness and doubt among those celebrating about what exactly they have voted for and whether Bolsonaro will be able to make good on his promises to defeat corruption and stamp out crime.

“We don’t know exactly what it will mean – but he symbolizes hope,” Angelo Bordin, a 30-year-old from São José do Rio Preto said.

Bünger confessed he also had qualms. “Sincerely, I have my uncertainties. Bolsonaro is an unknown quantity.”

“It’s an inflection point,” his friend, Luiz, agreed. “Might it go wrong? Yes.”

The White House has confirmed that US president Donald Trump called Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday night to congratulate him on his election victory.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that Trump congratulated the president-elect and that “both expressed a strong commitment to work side-by-side to improve the lives of the people of the United States and Brazil.”

More scenes celebrating the military tonight.

Tom Phillips has some footage of the celebrations in São Paulo. This video features Bolsonaro supporters dancing to Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) by Tihuana.

This second video shows supporters dancing along to a song in which Bolsonaro’s opponents are mocked. A sample of the lyrics include:

“Maria do Rosário (PT MP) doesn’t know how to wash dishes/Jandira Feghali (PCdoB MP) never lived in the favela/ Luciana Genro (ex PSOL MP) supports the landless workers But does not give away her address so nobody invades her home”

Our Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips says these lyrics are not even the worst of them, but he’s tied up with other reporting at the moment, so if there are any Portuguese-speaking readers of this blog who want to translate the full video for us, watch below and tweet me @mskatelyons and Tom Phillips.

We’re trying to unpick the reference to Churchill in Bolsonaro’s victory speech, in which he said he was “inspired by great world leaders”, before holding up a copy of the constitution and a biography of Winston Churchill.

Valor Econômico is reporting that internet searches for Churchill went up 5,000% in the minutes after Bolsonaro’s speech.

Dom Phillips, who is on the ground in Rio de Janeiro, has this report:

As celebrations continued outside Jair Bolsonaro’s condominium, the president-elect filmed a Facebook Live broadcast. Much of what he said was broadcast on a screen to an unruly crowd of supporters who drowned out his words chanting a percussive version of the national anthem.

Bolsonaro said that when he decided to run for president, he “knew all the difficulties I would have ahead of me”.

“But I couldn’t just think about me,” said Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro thanked his supporters – even those who couldn’t hear him. “What I most want is to follow the teachings of God alongside the Brazilian constitution, inspired by great world leaders,” he said, holding up a copy of the constitution and a biography of Winston Churchill.

A few hundred metres away, in front of the hotel where his party had been based, supporters surrounded retired General Augusto Heleno who will be his new defence minister. He was asked if Bolsonaro was a threat to democracy.

“Only those who were prejudiced about Bolsonaro saw a threat to democracy. There is no threat to democracy. Stamping Bolsonaro as a fascist is absurd,” he said. As the supporters began chanting that corruption was ending, drowning out reporters, Heleno continued.

“This is actually a show of democracy,” he said. “You have to get used to it.”

Inside the hotel lobby, Bolsonaro’s Finance Minister Paulo Guedes made a brief statement about economic policy to another scrum of reporters and said Brazil had been trapped for 30 years in a “social democratic” model of “uncontrolled, expanding public spending.”

“We are prisoners of low growth. We have very high taxes, we have high interest rates, we have snowballing debt,” he said. “It made Brazil poor.”

Guedes said that Brazil needed pension reform, tax cuts and a simplified tax system, a reform of the state machine to cut privileges and waste, and more investment in infrastructure.

“Private investments are the motor of economic growth,” he said, “and that’s what we are going to do.”

Gustavo Bebianno Rocha, the lawyer who became president of Bolsonaro’s Social Liberal Party and a right-hand man, said Brazil would now learn to walk on both legs.
“That’s why it walked with such difficulty. Brazil can show it has two legs, a right leg as well,” he said, saying that Brazil would now join other right-wing countries. “Generally these are governments that generate riches and jobs, with progress, with fiscal austerity, with balanced accounts, that’s what we will do,” he said

Updated

There have been reports of military and police joining in the celebrations at Bolsonaro’s victory. Our reporter Dom Phillips in Rio saw a police helicopter fly overhead with a Brazilian flag hanging from its door.

There is also video of military personnel, riding on military vehicles and carrying their weapons, progressing through the streets of Niterói in Brazil’s south-east through jubilant crowds celebrating the election result.

When Ricardo Mengon heard Jair Bolsonaro had been elected president of Brazil he shouted. Then he cried.

Finally, the 54-year-old insurance salesman grabbed a giant Brazil flag emblazoned with his country’s motto – Ordem e Progresso (Order and Progress) – and hit the streets of central São Paulo to mark the victory of a far-right populist he hopes will remake the world’s fourth largest democracy.

“A drop of hope has arrived! Now there will be order in this country!’ the father-of-three rejoiced as he hiked down Avenida Paulista, one of the city’s main drags, towards an explosion of fireworks and right-wing joy.

“The streets will be safe. There will be no pornography on the TV,” Mengon grinned. Pointing to a group of armed police who had sealed off the avenue, he added: “This is what Bolsonaro will do.”

The full report is here:

Jair Bolsonaro has had a call from Donald Trump congratulating him on his victory.

Trump is yet to tweet congratulations to Bolsonaro, but the Brazilian president-elect wrote on Twitter: “We just received a call from the President of the United States, @realDonaldTrump congratulating us on this historic election!” We express the desire to bring these two great nations closer together and to advance on the path of freedom and prosperity!”

A very guarded statement of congratulations from the Venezuelan leader.

“The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro, extends his congratulations to the people of Brazil, for the civic celebration of the second electoral round, in which Jair Bolsonaro was favored as president-elect of our brother country,” said a statement of congratulations from president Nicolás Maduro, tweeted by Venezuela’s foreign minister Jorge Arreaza.

“The Bolivarian government takes advantage of the occasion to exhort the new president to resume - as neighbouring countries - the road of respectful, harmonious diplomatic relations for progress and regional integration.”


Relations between Venezuela and Brazil have been increasingly strained under outgoing president Michel Temer, due to Brazil’s criticisms of the Maduro government’s human rights violations. However, as Bolsonaro and Maduro are at opposite extremes on the ideological spectrum, it’s hard to see that any reconciliation is likely to be forthcoming.

Our Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips writes that Jair Bolsonaro and his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, have long been fierce critics of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and have links to a group of Venezuelan dissidents called Rumbo Libertad who support the idea of an armed uprising against to remove him.

Earlier today Eduardo Bolsonaro tweeted that activists from that group had been following the election “and making plans” together in São Paulo.

Some think it is possible that having a Brazilian president who is hawkish towards Venezuela might reduce resistance to the idea of US military intervention in Latin America.

The Bolsonaros have previously made a politically-charged prop-doc about Venezuela’s economic meltdown, designed to boost their race for the presidency. In that film Bolsonaro tells one of the dissidents who was in São Paulo today: “You can count on me, I will do whatever I can for that government to be removed.”

There’s some consternation online about the wording of a news alert from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about Bolsonaro’s win, which they have framed in the context of its potential for Canadian investment.

Given Bolsonaro has talked about loosening environmental protections and opening up the Amazon for agribusiness and mining, some are unhappy about CBC seeming to celebrate the “fresh opportunities for Canadian companies looking to invest in the resource-rich country”.

Michel Temer, the current president of Brazil, who took office after the impeachment and removal from office of Dilma Rousseff, says he has spoken to Jair Bolsonaro to congratulate him on his victory and thank him for his comments seeking unity and peace in the country.

“I just congratulated the president-elect @jairbolsonaro for the historic victory won today. After the election, it’s time for everyone, united, to continue working for Brazil,” he wrote on Twitter.

“I spoke to the president-elect @jairbolsonaro. I could perceive his enthusiasm, not only when he spoke to me, also when he made statements seeking the unity, the peace and harmony of the country. I told him that starting tomorrow we’ll start the transition.”

Simon Tisdall, foreign affairs commentator and former foreign editor for the Guardian has written that Bolsonaro won partly because he was able to sell himself as a maverick and political disrupter, a “none-of-the-above” candidate.

Brazil’s voters appear to have followed a trend evident in embattled democracies around the world, swapping the politics of hope for “anti-politics” – the politics of anger, rejection and despair.

In office for eight years, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s jailed former president and founder of the Workers’ party (PT), pledged to enact radical change through sweeping social reforms. But like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto, and many American and European politicians of left and right who also promised a rosier future, Lula failed to deliver – and left a trail of disillusionment in his wake.

According to pre-election polls, 25% of those who backed Bolsonaro did so not because they admired him or his policies, but out of determination to punish the PT for years of misrule. This angry mood, comparable to “throw the bums out” sentiments in recent US elections, presented the PT’s new standard-bearer, Fernando Haddad, with an uphill battle.

It was no longer a question of left or right, more a wholesale rejection of politics-as-usual.

Bolsonaro’s candidacy benefitted from another trending electoral phenomenon: a preference among voters for a political outsider or maverick “disrupter” who challenges the status quo. Donald Trump was the quintessential “none-of-the-above” candidate in the US in 2016. As with Trump, many voters did not really like Bolsonaro. But they preferred him to any “establishment” figure.

Dom Phillips is out on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, where Bolsonaro supporters are in full celebration mode.

And Chilean president Sebastian Pinera used Twitter to send praise to Brazil, saying: “I congratulate the Brazilian people for a clean and democratic election.”

Pinera tweeted to Bolsonaro: “I am sure we will work with vision and strength toward a future that will favour integration and the welfare of our people.”

More congratulations for the president-elect, this time from Mauricio Macri, the president of Argentina.

“Congratulations to Jair Bolsonaro for his triumph in Brazil! I hope we can work together soon for the sake of the relationship between our country and the wellbeing of Argentinians and Brazilians.”

Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini has also offered his congratulations to Bolsonaro, saying “Even in #Brasile the citizens have sent the left packing! Well done, President #Bolsonaro, the friendship between our peoples and our governments will be even stronger!!!”

We are getting some pictures through showing clashes between supporters of Bolsonaro and supporters of Haddad. So far, we haven’t heard any reports of serious or widespread violence.

Riot police clash with opponents of Jair Bolsonaro, after the second round of the presidential elections, in Sao Paulo.
Riot police clash with opponents of Jair Bolsonaro, after the second round of the presidential elections, in Sao Paulo. Photograph: Miguel Schincariol/AFP/Getty Images
A Bolsonaro supporter is yelled at by a won supporting Fernando Haddad at a Haddad event in Rio de Janeiro on election night.
A Bolsonaro supporter is yelled at by a won supporting Fernando Haddad at a Haddad event in Rio de Janeiro on election night. Photograph: Daniel Ramalho/AFP/Getty Images
A supporter of left wing professor and presidential candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Fernando Haddad, shouts at a Bolsonaro supporter after Jair Bolsonaro won the election.
A supporter of left wing professor and presidential candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Fernando Haddad, shouts at a Bolsonaro supporter after Jair Bolsonaro won the election. Photograph: Daniel Ramalho/AFP/Getty Images

Defeated PT candidate Fernando Haddad has also taken to Twitter to thank supporters.

“I would like to thank my ancestors who taught me the value of courage and to defend justice at any price. All other values depend on courage,” he wrote.

“I would like to thank the 45 million voters who have accompanied us. An expressive part of the population that needs to be respected.”

He has also said he has a “responsibility” to join the political opposition.

Updated

Bolsonaro has tweeted to his followers, writing: “Thanks for your trust! We’re going to changing Brazil!”

Bolsonaro supporters gathered outside São Paulo’s art museum are chating “Yes him! Yes him!”

This chant is a direct rebuke to the “not him” rallying cry for Brazil’s anti-Bolsonaro movement.

Updated

Human Rights Watch have issued a statement calling on Brazil’s judiciary and other institutions to resist any attempt to undermine human rights, the rule of law, and democracy after the election of Bolsonaro, whom they call a “pro-torture, openly bigoted member of Congress”.

“Brazil has independent judges, committed prosecutors and public defenders, courageous reporters, and a vibrant civil society,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “We will join them in standing up against any attempt to erode the democratic rights and institutions that Brazil has painstakingly built in the last three decades,”

Bolsonaro defeated the Workers Party candidate, Fernando Haddad, after a campaign tarred by political violence. Many of the victims were lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, women, and Afro-Brazilians.

On October 8, a man stabbed to death an Afro-Brazilian artist, Romualdo Rosário da Costa, in Salvador, allegedly after the man became angry when da Costa revealed he had voted for Haddad in the first election round. Witnesses said several men shouted Bolsonaro’s name during an argument with a transgender woman in São Paulo on October 16, then killed her. Bolsonaro himself was stabbed during a rally in September.

More than 140 reporters covering the elections were harassed, threatened, and in some cases physically attacked, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) found.

In his decades-long career in Congress and as a presidential candidate, Bolsonaro has endorsed abusive practices that undermine the rule of law, defended the country’s dictatorship, and has been a vocal proponent of bigotry, Human Rights Watch said.

    • During the presidential campaign, Bolsonaro announced that he would not accept the election results unless he won. He said that “we will shoot” Workers Party supporters and told “leftist outlaws” to either leave the country or find themselves in jail. He said he would like to double the size of the Supreme Courtso that he can pack it with people who share his views. Bolsonaro´s running mate, the retired army general Antônio Hamilton Mourão, raised the possibility of a “self-coup” by the president with support from the armed forces in case of “anarchy.”
    • Bolsonaro has endorsed abusive practices that undermine the rule of law. He has said Brazil´s military dictatorship (1964-1985) made a mistake by torturing people when it should have killed them, repeatedly referred to one of the worst torturers of the dictatorship as a “hero,” and said police should have “carte blanche” to kill criminal suspects.

“Human Rights Watch will closely monitor the rhetoric and actions of the Bolsonaro government,” Vivanco said. “We will continue doing the rigorous, independent research and advocacy we have carried out in Brazil for the last decades in defense of human rights for all Brazilians, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, political beliefs, or religion.”

The outgoing president of Mexico has tweeted his congratulations to Bolsonaro.

Enrique Peña Nieto wrote: “In the name of the people and the government of Mexico, I congratulate Jair Bolsonaro for his election as president of the Federal Republic of Brazil, on an exemplary day which reflects the strength of democracy in that country.”

Updated

In his televised acceptance speech, Bolsonaro vowed to carry out his campaign promises to stamp out corruption after years of leftist rule.

“We cannot continue flirting with communism ... We are going to change the destiny of Brazil,” Bolsonaro said.

Bolsonaro, who was filmed praying with his wife and team before appearing on television to deliver his speech, also spoke a lot about God and freedom, which he called a “fundamental principle”. He said “I’ve never been alone, I’ve always felt the power of God.”

Bolsonaro has just delivered a televised speech, we’ll have some quotes from it soon. We’re not sure if there will be a larger, rally-style speech later tonight, but this style of speaking to the public, in a dull televised speech, is typical of Bolsonaro.

In his own words: what Bolsonaro has said

On refugees:

“The scum of the earth is showing up in Brazil, as if we didn’t have enough problems of our own to sort out.” (September 2015)

On gay people:

“I would be incapable of loving a homosexual son. I’m not going to be a hypocrite: I’d rather my son died in an accident than showed up with some bloke with a moustache.” (June 2011)

“I won’t fight it or discriminate, but if I see two men kissing each other in the street, I’ll whack them.” (October 2002)

“We Brazilians don’t like homosexuals.” (2013)

“Are [gays] demigods? ... Just because someone has sex with his excretory organ, it doesn’t make him better than anyone else.” (February 2014)

On democracy and dictatorship:

“You’ll never change anything in this country through voting. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, things will only change when a civil war kicks off and we do the work the [military] regime didn’t. Killing some 30,000 …. Killing them! If a couple of innocents die, that’s OK.” (May 1999)

“I am in favour of a dictatorship … We will never resolve serious national problems with this irresponsible democracy.” (1992)

On human rights:

“I’m in favour of torture.” (May 1999)

“Brazilian prisons are wonderful places ... they’re places for people to pay for their sins, not live the life of Reilly in a spa. Those who rape, kidnap and kill are going there to suffer, not attend a holiday camp.” (February 2014)

“Are we obliged to give these bastards [criminals] a good life? They spend their whole lives fucking us and those of us who work have to give them a good life in prison. They should fuck themselves, full stop. That’s it, dammit!” (February 2014)

On women:

“I’ve got five kids. Four of them are men, but on the fifth I had a moment of weakness and it came out a woman.” (April, 2017)

“I said I wouldn’t rape you because you don’t deserve it.” (December 2014, to politician Maria do Rosário, repeating a comment first made to her in 2003).

On race:

“I don’t run the risk [of seeing my children date black women or being gay]. My children were very well raised.” (March 2011)

“I went to visit a quilombo [a settlement founded by the descendants of runaway slaves]. The lightest afrodescendant there weighed seven arrobas [more than 100kg]. They don’t do anything. I don’t think they’re even good for procreating anymore.” (April 2017)

Full story: 'The extreme right has conquered Brazil'

Tom Phillips and Dom Phillips have written this wrap of the election results:

Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former paratrooper who built his campaign around pledges to crush corruption, crime and a supposed communist threat, secured 55.7% of the votes after 88% were counted and was therefore elected Brazil’s next president, electoral authorities said on Sunday.

Bolsonaro’s exact lead over his rival, Fernando Haddad, will be clear when the full official election results are announced shortly.

News of the exit poll result sent Bolsonaro devotees outside his beachfront home in western Rio de Janeiro into ecstasy and drew huge crowds out onto Avenida Paulista, one of São Paulo’s most important boulevards, where they sang Brazil’s national anthem and set off fireworks.

But Bolsonaro’s triumph will leave many millions of progressive Brazilians profoundly disturbed and fearful of the intolerant, right-wing tack their country is now likely to take.

Over nearly three decades in politics, he has become notorious for his hostility to black, gay and indigenous Brazilians and to women as well as for his admiration of dictatorial regimes, including the one that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985.

“The extreme right has conquered Brazil,” Celso Rocha de Barros, a Brazilian political columnist, told the election night webcast of Piauí magazine. “Brazil now has a more extremist president than any democratic country in the world ... we don’t know what is going to happen.”

Updated

Election day – in pictures

Supporters of right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro celebrate victory in the presidential elections.
Supporters of right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro celebrate victory in the presidential elections. Photograph: Victor Moriyama/Getty Images
Bolsonaro supporters celebrate his election in Sao Paulo.
Bolsonaro supporters celebrate his election in Sao Paulo. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters
Supporters of far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Supporters of far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Photograph: Sebastião Moreira/EPA
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro have been celebrating all day, as they anticipated their candidate would be declared winner in the race.
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro have been celebrating all day, as they anticipated their candidate would be declared winner in the race. Photograph: Pilar Olivares/Reuters
Supporters of Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro cheer as they gather outside his residence in Rio de Janeiro, during the country’s presidential runoff election.
Supporters of Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro cheer as they gather outside his residence in Rio de Janeiro, during the country’s presidential runoff election. Photograph: Léo Corrêa/AP
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro celebrate on election day.
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro celebrate on election day. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters
Brazilians on Sunday were weighing their hunger for radical change against fears that Bolsonaro, the presidential front-runner, could threaten democracy as they cast ballots in the culmination of a bitter campaign that split many families and was frequently marred by violence.
Brazilians on Sunday were weighing their hunger for radical change against fears that Bolsonaro, the presidential front-runner, could threaten democracy as they cast ballots in the culmination of a bitter campaign that split many families and was frequently marred by violence. Photograph: Buda Mendes/Getty Images
Supporters of presidential front-runner Jair Bolsonaro sing the national anthem outside his residence in Rio de Janeiro.
Supporters of presidential front-runner Jair Bolsonaro sing the national anthem outside his residence in Rio de Janeiro. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP
Supporters of Brazilian Presidential candidate for Workers’ Party Fernando Haddad react after the first official results of the election, at the Workers’ Party national headquarters in Sao Paulo.
Supporters of Brazilian Presidential candidate for Workers’ Party Fernando Haddad react after the first official results of the election, at the Workers’ Party national headquarters in Sao Paulo. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images
A Haddad supporter reacts after the first official results of the election.
A Haddad supporter reacts after the first official results of the election. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Bolsonaro wins 56% of the vote

Updated

There were delirious scenes outside Bolsonaro’s condominium when news of the victorious exit poll swept through the anxious crowd, reports Dom Phillips. As fireworks roared. Crowds cheered, people danced, flags were waved.

Commercial representative Rafael Gomes, 34, said the win represented hope for him and his family.

“I can see a better future for my son, better health, education and security, something we haven’t had for years,” he said. “This is phenomenal. It’s a unique feeling.”

Updated

With 88% of votes counted Jair Bolsonaro has 55.7% and is therefore elected Brazil’s next president, electoral authorities have confirmed.

Bolsonaro to become next president of Brazil

A far-right, pro-gun, pro-torture populist has been elected Brazil’s next president, exit polls suggest, after a drama-filled and deeply divisive election that looks set to radically reforge the future of the world’s fourth biggest democracy.

Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former paratrooper who built his campaign around pledges to crush corruption, crime and a supposed communist threat, secured 56% compared to his leftist rival Fernando Haddad’s 44%, according to exit polls.

The full election result is expected be announced shortly.

Celso Rocha de Barros, a Brazilian political columnist, has given a very, very, very bleak reading of today’s election to the magazine Piauí in its election night webcast.

“The extreme right has conquered Brazil,” he says. “Brazil now has a more extremist president than any democratic country in the world ... we don’t know what is going to happen...this is how far we have fallen today.”

Brazilian students protest against censorship at the universities. The banner reads; “Women and LGBTS anti-fascists.”
Brazilian students protest against censorship at the universities. The banner reads; “Women and LGBTS anti-fascists.” Photograph: Sergio Moraes/Reuters

As Bolsonaro supporters take to the streets in party mode, in anticipation of a Bolsonaro victory, there are some who are terrified by the prospect of the far-right candidate winning power. Among them, many in Brazil’s LGBT community, who are bracing themselves for the arrival of a candidate who describes himself as “homophobic – and very proud of it”.

Tom Phillips has this report, which he describes as “truly one of saddest stories I have ever had to tell”.

“It’s as if the gates of hell have been opened – as if hunting season had been declared,” said Beto de Jesus, a veteran LGBT activist and founder of São Paulo’s huge annual gay pride parade. “It’s barbarism.”

James Green, an American academic with longstanding ties to Brazil’s gay movement, said Bolsonaro’s “repulsive” discourse had left some gay and lesbian couples wondering if it was even still safe to hold hands in public: “He has unleashed all the demons in Brazilian society and they are out there now: unmasked and vicious and violent.”

Dom Phillips has been talking with Bolsonaro supporters in Rio de Janeiro.

Huge crowds are already flocking onto São Paulo’s most famous boulevard, Avenida Paulista, to celebrate what they now believe is a certain Bolsonaro victory. Exit polls look likely to confirm that in about 30 minutes.

Among those partying already is Pietro Sambugaro, a 28-year-old activist from southern Brazil, who said he had spent months camped out on the streets in order to promote Bolsonaro’s campaign.

“I feel so proud to have been part of this change,” he says, breaking down into tears as he describes his joy. “He is our hope!”

Of Bolsonaro Sambugaro says: “I know he is honest. I know he’s interested in Brazil, rather than his party. He doesn’t care about the presidency. He cares about the country. That is what it means to be a Bolsonariano.”

“I came to celebrate,” says Julimar Pereira Souza, 40, from Teófilo Otoni, a town in Minas Gerais state. “There is so much I hope he will change.”

André Eliezer, 38, from the Amazon city of Belém, is also in seventh heaven. “We are going to win this thing,” he shouts.

Updated

One of the most important endorsements, particularly for young people, came from Youtuber Felipe Neto, whose channel has nearly 27 million followers.

Neto said he was troubled by Bolsonaro’s comments a week ago that “red” leftists would be run out of Brazil.

“In 16 years of the (Workers’ Party), I have been robbed, but never threatened,” Neto wrote on Twitter, where he is followed by more than 8m people.

In another tweet he said “Bolsominions” had “wished my death” and threatened to arrest and attack him, which made him feel confident he had chosen “the least wrong side”.

We are expecting the first results in about half an hour (7pm local time). But Bolsonaro supporters are already celebrating both in Rio, where Bolsonaro lives, and in São Paulo, where hundreds of supporters have taken to the streets in party mode.

Updated

British rock icon Roger Waters performs at Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 24 October 24, 2018.
British rock icon Roger Waters performs at Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 24 October 24, 2018. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images

One of the biggest surprises in Brazil’s highly unusual and unpredictable election campaign has been the role played by Roger Waters, the veteran rock star and former member of Pink Floyd, who became an iconic, anti-Bolsonaro voice while on tour in Brazil, reports Dom Phillips.

On tour in São Paulo earlier this month, he provoked strong reactions in a stadium show when denounced Jair Bolsonaro, included his name in a list with the warning “Neo-fascism is on the rise” and flashed up the ‘Not Him’ (Ele Não), anti-Bolsonaro slogan.

Fights broke out. Some fans took to social media to complain he had no right to interfere in Brazilian politics, others observed that those complaining had clearly never listened to Pink Floyd’s lyrics. Waters later gave an interview to top Brazilian TV show Fantástico and the performed Pink Floyd hit ‘Wish You Were Here’.

At Rio’s Maracanã stadium, he invited the widow and relatives of murdered councillor and human rights defender Marielle Franco on stage. Her daughter Luyara Santos, sister Anielle Franco and widow Mônica Benício called for justice and a resolution to the unsolved killing.

As the election campaign continued, so did the Roger Waters tour – reaching Curitiba in the South of Brazil last night. Tensions were high before the show after local media reported that he had been warned not to feature any political comments or demonstrations after 10pm, in accordance with electoral law.

News of the warning had been widely reported, and tensions rose in the crowd as the deadline approached. Would Roger Waters get arrested on the eve of the Brazilian election?

“At 9.59pm and 30 seconds, he stopped the music, he said he could not talk about it or he would be arrested,” said Luciano Nóbrega, 39, an IT projects manager who was at the show. Videos on social media showed a black screen, the following phrase appeared: “We have 30 seconds, our last chance to resist fascism before Sunday. Not him! It’s 10pm. Obey the law.”

The message, in the city where the Operation Car Wash anti-graft investigation that jailed Workers’ Party leader Lula is based, once again divided the crowd.

“There were people with Bolsonaro T-shirts. There were people with ‘Ele Não’ T-shirts. There were more anti-Bolsonaro than pro-Bolsonaro,” Nóbrega said. “It was very cool.”

Presidential candidate for the Workers’ Party (PT) Fernando Haddad arrives to cast his vote at a polling station.
Presidential candidate for the Workers’ Party (PT) Fernando Haddad arrives to cast his vote at a polling station. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Fernando Haddad, voting today at a school, said we was “confident” that he could still win the presidency, despite polls putting him 8 to 10 points behind.

“There are many democratic voices that could have been silent and have spoken in our favor.” Supporters gathered in front and sang, “We can dream.”

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, made no comments to reporters when he voted at a military compound in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters after voting, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters after voting, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photograph: Fernando Maia/EPA

In a highly unusual moment, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Jose Dias Toffoli, read out part of the Constitution to reporters after he voted.

“The future president must respect institutions, must respect democracy, the rule of law, the judiciary branch, the national Congress and the legislative branch,” Toffoli said in remarks many took to be a rebuke of Bolsonaro and his more extreme positions.

On Saturday, a popular former Supreme Court justice, Joaquim Barbosa, tweeted support for Haddad, saying Bolsonaro’s candidacy scared him. Likewise, former Attorney General Rodrigo Janot, one of the biggest crusaders against corruption in Haddad’s Workers’ Party in recent years, endorsed Haddad for similar reasons.

Who is voting for Jair Bolsonaro?

Tom Phillips in São Paulo Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro have spoken to some of those who cast their votes for Bolsonaro today. Their full report is here.

Cristina Gozdal turned out to vote on Sunday morning wearing the yellow and green colours of Brazil’s national flag and hoping her country was on the verge of electing its very own Donald Trump.

“He thinks like the people think,” Gozdal, a 45-year-old systems analyst, said of Jair Bolsonaro, the far right’s favourite to become Brazil’s next leader, as she cast her vote a few blocks from Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach.

Around Gozdal, outside Rio’s Infante Dom Henrique school, other voters chimed in with their support of the former paratrooper and professional polemicist who stands on the verge of leading the world’s fourth-largest democracy despite – or perhaps because of – his infamously venom-filled tongue and his oft-voiced nostalgia for dictatorship.

On the eve of the election, polls gave Bolsonaro an 8-10% advantage over his leftist rival, Fernando Haddad, although the Workers’ party (PT) candidate had been gaining ground in recent days.

Monica Gamero, a 48-year-old civil servant, said she believed Bolsonaro would improve education and clamp down on crime. “Our country is in moral, cultural and security disorder,” she complained.

Pensioner Denir Quintanilha said he was voting out of anger at the PT, which critics blame for leading Brazil into economic meltdown and a quagmire of corruption. “We are totally against the PT,” said the 65-year-old.

Elisabete Pereira, a 56-year-old estate agent, said Brazilians were sick of being governed by “thieves”.

During his visit to Heliópolis on Saturday, Bolsonaro’s rival Fernando Haddad told reporters he believed voters were becoming aware of the “leap into the dark” his radical opponent represented. “He is a truculent and dangerous person,” said Haddad, who only officially became the PT candidate last month after the jailed former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was barred from running.

Aloízio Mercadante, a veteran PT figure and Brazil’s former chief of staff, told the Guardian he was confident of a turnaround. “The other side is on the defensive … we are on the offensive,” he said.

With Brazil struggling to emerge from an unprecedented recession and shake off a vast corruption scandal, Mercadante said he understood voters were angry with politicians but said Bolsonaro represented “the worst possible adventure that Brazilian democracy could have to go through”.

But Haroldo Carrilho, a popcorn salesman who had parked his cart outside the Gonzaguinha school, said that even in Heliópolis, a traditional PT stronghold, some were so fed up with their political leaders they were willing to take the risk.

“In Lula’s day the whole favela was PT,” said Carrilho, 58. Now many were shifting to Bolsonaro, he said, because the PT had lost touch with the poor. “They abandoned us.”

Updated

As well as the presidential election, there are also several key gubernatorial races going on today including in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

There exit polls for those two races are out and they suggest that politicians linked to Jair Bolsonaro are ahead.

In Rio, the exit poll gives Witzel Wilson 55% compared to his rival, former mayor Eduardo Paes’ 45%.

In São Paulo the former presenter of Brazil’s version of The Apprentice, João Doria, leads his opponent, Márcio França by 52% to 48%. Doria has cast himself as “BolsoDoria” during his campaign in an attempt to boost his support.

Both of those exit poll results represent blows to progressive Brazilians and are further hints that the winds are blowing in Bolsonaro’s direction.

What will this mean for the planet?

A Bolsonaro win would be scary news for the environment. Bolsonaro has pledged to scrap Brazil’s environment ministry, and open indigenous reserves to mining, although last week he said he had reconsidered a plan to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

During a visit to the Amazon region in April, Bolsonaro praised Donald Trump’s approval of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines and told the Guardian he would take similar steps and target environmental groups operating in Brazil.

“This cowardly business of international NGOs like WWF and so many others from England sticking their noses into Brazil is going to end! This tomfoolery stops right here!” Bolsonaro said. “We’re in Brazil here: Great Brazil just like the Great America of our dear Trump.”

Despite his plans to open up the Amazon to agribusiness, he won convincingly in the Amazon states of Roraima, Acre and Rondônia, with more than 62%, and in Mato Grosso, with 60%.

Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s global environment editor and former Brazil correspondent, has written this excellent and deeply worrying analysis: “Our planet can’t take many more populists like Brazil’s Bolsonaro”.

Updated

Dom Phillips is in Rio, and has this dispatch from outside Jair Bolsonaro’s home.

Set up a few hundred yards from Bolsonaro’s condominium, Alessandra da Silva, 33, is hoping to sell all 80 of these T-shirts with the slogan: “My party is Brazil” (Meu Partido é o Brasil).

Bolsonaro was wearing a T-shirt with the same slogan when he was stabbed, and the phrase has ever more popular among supporters.

Alessandra da Silva sells T-shirts with the slogan: “My party is Brazil” (Meu Partido é o Brasil).
Alessandra da Silva sells T-shirts with the slogan: “My party is Brazil” (Meu Partido é o Brasil). Photograph: Dom Phillips for the Guardian

There are mixed messages about whether Bolsonaro will do a press conference or not after votes are counted. But a big stage truck – with space on top for speakers, and of a type widely used in Brazilian political events – is parked up around the corner.

A stage set up near Bolsonaro’s home
A stage set up near Bolsonaro’s home Photograph: Dom Phillips for the Guardian

Spotted in the lobby of the hotel near Bolsonaro’s condo and doing the trademark “finger gun” gesture, Nereu Crispim is a businessman turned politician who used to work in civil construction and was voted to Congress for the first time on 7 October for Bolsonaro’s Social Liberal Party (PSL), which is now the second biggest in the lower house.

“I got into this process because of violence. I was robbed and had a truck robbed,” he said. He was run over and has 12 screws in one leg. He and his wife Carolina Lompa became Bolsonaro activists – she now presides the party’s women’s section in their home state of Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil’s Deep South. An iron fist approach to crime has bolstered Bolsonaro’s support - as have his attacks on endemic graft.

“First mandate. I have never been a politician. Clean slate,” Crispin said.

Nereu Crispim, businessman turned politician
Nereu Crispim, businessman turned politician Photograph: Dom Phillips for the Guardian

Updated

Dom Phillips is on the ground in Rio de Janeiro outside Jair Bolsonaro’s home where supporters have gathered. Police in riot gear are also there .... just in case.

Riot squad in position near Bolsonaro’s condominium, where supporters have gathered.
Riot squad in position near Bolsonaro’s condominium, where supporters have gathered. Photograph: Dom Phillips for the Guardian

What do George Orwell, JK Rowling, Malala Yousafzai, Gabriel García Márquez, Cervantes, Margaret Atwood and José Saramago all have in common?

They all made it down to the polls in Brazil today as part of an online anti-violence campaign called #MaisLivrosMenosArmas or #MoreBooksFewerGuns.

The initiative was created as a way of responding to voters of the far-right favourite to win today’s presidential election, Jair Bolsonaro, a small number of whom went to the polls during last month’s first round carrying weapons. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has promised a hard line crackdown on crime if he wins and his relatives often wear t-shirts or hats celebrating assault rifles or the National Rifle Association (NRA). During his campaign Bolsonaro vowed to give police a “blank check” to kill criminals and joked about machine gunning his left-wing political opponents.

To protest such actions and plans, many voters and rival politicians decided to take symbolic books with them when they voted today and have posted the results on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Brazilian books that made it to the vote include ones by the black feminist philosopher Djamila Ribeiro, the author and composer Chico Buarque, the playwright Nelson Rodrigues and the novelist and diplomat João Guimarães Rosa.

Harry Potter also made it down to one polling station, along with his Philosopher’s Stone.

Updated

What will happen tonight?

The first round of voting took place three weeks ago. The far-right Brazilian populist Jair Bolsonaro secured 47% of the vote, just shy of the majority he would have needed to win the presidency outright in the first round.

So, Brazilians have returned to the polls today to vote in the second round, which is a two-party contest between the candidates that received the most votes in the first round: Bolsonaro and the Fernando Haddad, for the leftist Workers’ party, who won 28% of the vote.

After the first round of voting analysts called a Haddad victory is almost impossible and have called Bolsonaro the “overwhelming favourite” in the contest.

On the eve of the election, polls gave Bolsonaro an 8-10% advantage over his leftist rival, although the Workers’ party (PT) candidate had been gaining ground in recent days.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the second-round of voting in the Brazil presidential elections.

This is a big night for Brazil, marking the end of an election campaign that has been incredibly dramatic, and coming weeks after the first round of voting which saw Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right candidate narrowly miss out on winning an outright majority.

We’ll bring you the news as votes are counted and, ultimately, as a new president is announced.

A reminder to follow me, our Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips, and our reporter Dom Phillips, on Twitter, and to keep checking back in to the blog as we bring you the news.

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