BRASILIA, Brazil—Right-wing Congressman and former Army captain Jair Bolsonaro won nearly half the votes in Brazil’s first-round presidential election on Oct. 7. He will now face leftist Fernando Haddad, the former mayor of Sao Paulo, in a second round of voting on Oct. 28.
He won 46.3 percent of valid ballots, far ahead of Haddad’s 29 percent but short of the outright majority needed to avoid a second round, electoral authorities said.
Bolsonaro, 63, gained momentum after a near-fatal stabbing at a rally one month ago that kept him from campaigning.
Haddad’s campaign headquarters in a Sao Paulo hotel broke out in cheers when exit polls showed that the race would go to a runoff.
Haddad, a former education minister and one-term mayor of Sao Paulo, had portrayed a vote for him as a show of support for the left-wing Workers Party founder and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom their supporters associate with good economic times and falling inequality.
Lula was blocked from the race after being sentenced to 12 years in prison on corruption charges in one of the world’s biggest-ever political graft scandals.
By highlighting his ties to Lula, Haddad also played into the hands of Bolsonaro, whose supporters are discontent with the left-wing Workers Party; blaming them for widespread corruption, rising crime and recession.
In the most polarized election since the end of military rule in 1985, Bolsonaro is backed by a group of retired generals who have criticized the left-wing Workers Party governments and publicly advocate military intervention if corruption continues.
