Brazil runoff live updates: Bolsonaro says it is ‘impossible to concede’ election result after historic Lula win

The Guardian’s Tom Phillips was in the São Paulo conference hall as Lula addressed a packed crowd of ecstatic supporters.

“I am (nearly) 81 … and I am going to do the best term a president has ever done,” Lula vowed.

We are going to change the way that this country is governed … This election was a defeat for denialism … I want to thank God and to thank you, Brazilian men and women of this country … it was democracy that made this happen”

Lula’s vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, told the crowd: “You saved Brazilian democracy for the second time. Congratulations president Lula”

The president’s supporters chanted back: “Olé. Olé. Olá! Lula! Lula!”

US Senator Bernie Sanders has congratulated Lula, saying he has “stood up for Brazilian workers & democracy.”

“Congratulations to Lula on his extraordinary reelection victory in the Brazilian presidential election,” the senator, who is a key figure on the US left, wrote soon after the results were clear.

The president of Brazil’s electoral court, Kassio Nunes Marques, has recognised Lula’s victory, saying “with more than 64 million votes, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been re-elected and will be the 40th President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, for the term beginning on 5 January 2027.”

Marques added that he had called both candidates.

To President Lula, I express the electoral justice system’s recognition of his participation in yet another democratic process and of his victory at the ballot box. His political career spans different periods of Brazil’s democratic history. He has stood as a candidate in eight elections, winning four of them.”

To candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who contested a presidential election for the first time and received a significant number of votes, I offer my congratulations on his campaign.”

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In a five-minute speech in which he took no questions, and which appeared to have been deliberately timed to begin only after Lula’s televised victory speech had ended, Flávio Bolsonaro made no mention of the fact that his campaign had also asked the electoral court to extend voting hours.

While Lula’s request concerned cities in at least nine states where voters had not been provided with the free public transport guaranteed by law, Bolsonaro justified his request by citing heavy rain in some states.

As well as refusing to concede, the senator told his supporters:

I will not give up on my Brazil, and I hope you won’t give up either.

Far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro said it was “impossible to concede the election result” and that his legal team would seek to have the election annulled.

Following in the footsteps of his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, who four years ago also refused to acknowledge his defeat by Lula – before attempting a coup and being convicted for it – the senator cited a supreme court justice’s decision to extend voting hours as the alleged reason.

Although Bolsonaro had also requested an extension of voting hours, the senator said Justice Cristiano Zanin’s decision to extend it from 5pm to 7pm “was not normal, it was unacceptable” and amounted to “changing the rules of the game while the game was being played”.

Bolsonaro said the decision had come from “Lula’s friends on the supreme court”, pointing out that Zanin had previously represented the leftwing president as his lawyer and had been appointed to the court by him.

The justice ordered the extension minutes after 5pm, the scheduled closing time for polling stations, after fellow justice Kassio Nunes Marques spent hours without ruling on Lula’s campaign request. During the campaign, Marques, appointed by Jair Bolsonaro and current head of the electoral court, had been criticised for bias in rulings favouring the far-right senator.

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Flávio Bolsonaro is calling for Brazil’s election results to be “annulled” after his loss to Lula and says he will not concede defeat to the incumbent president.

His reported comments come after he said a supreme court judge’s ruling extending voting ​for ​two ​hours ‌on Monday was “unacceptable”.

We’ll have more on this and Lula’s comments from his victory speech soon.

Flávio Bolsonaro is reportedly saying that the extension of voting hours in the election runoff was unacceptable.

The defeated senator’s comments come after Brazil’s supreme court extended voting time by two hours on Monday at the request of both candidates.

As mentioned earlier, Lula’s request came after issues in nine states with buses that provide transportation to polls. Bolsonaro’s was due to heavy rains in the nation’s south.

Lula is saying his campaign defeated foreign intervention through digital platforms and that the platforms need to be regulated.

He also said in speaking after his election victory that his campaign managed to convince people that voting was extremely important to safeguard democracy in Brazil.

His party would change the way it ran the country and would make people participate more in the decision-making process, he said, quoted by Reuters.

The returning president went on to say he would govern for all 215 million Brazilians.

Luiz is delivering a victory speech to a São Paulo hall packed with supporters after being re-elected Brazilian president.

As we await Lula speaking in São Paulo after his historic win, here are some of the reactions from political leaders in the region and beyond, care of Reuters.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum:

Long live democracy, the people of Brazil won. Congratulations, ⁠President Lula!

Paraguayan president Santiago Peña:

Congratulations Lula on your election as president of Brazil. I salute the ⁠Brazilian people for this great democratic journey.

Paraguay and Brazil share ​a common agenda of ‌integration and development. We ‌will continue working together for the well-being of our people.

Uruguayan president Yamandú Orsi:

I just spoke with the president-elect of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a friend.

I congratulated him on the victory and on the democratic celebration that an electoral process represents.

Bolivian president Rodrigo Paz:

I congratulate President ‌Lula on his victory. Bolivia and Brazil are neighbouring and brother countries, united by a shared history ​and common challenges.

We will continue working together to strengthen our relationship and generate more opportunities for our nations.

Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel:

Dear brother Lula, on behalf of the Cuban ⁠government and people, I congratulate you for this historic ​victory that ensures ​the continuity of the ​path of peace, sovereignty, and social justice embarked upon ​by the ‌Brazilian people ​under your leadership.

Panamanian president José Raúl Mulino:

I congratulate the Brazilian people for this democratic day and especially President Lula for the victory! We will continue working together for our countries.

Lula is about to come on stage at a conference hall in São Paulo and it is absolutely packed with ecstatic supporters and allies.

They are standing in front of a giant Brazil flag and look over the moon.

“This means that our democracy and our sovereignty are still alive,” congresswoman Tabata Amaral told me as she arrived.

Hundreds of supporters have packed the hall chanting:

Lula! The warrior! Of the Brazilian people!

More than half an hour has passed since the result was announced and there is still no sign of far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro in the area where dozens of journalists are waiting at the Brasília mansion where he followed the count.

During the evening, smoke could be seen and the smell of a lively barbecue filled the air, but it ended with guests leaving looking dejected. One of them approached the press to shout that “it was the fucking north-east’s fault”, insulting the region where Lula has historically won most of his votes.

Four years ago, when Jair Bolsonaro lost to Lula, supporters of the former president also directed prejudice at people from the region.

Bolsonaro’s press officer had said earlier that he would address the nation after the count, but since Lula’s victory was announced his team has gone silent and journalists do not know when, or whether, it will happen.

The incumbent, who had lost by 2.2 million votes three weeks ago, has now won by 4.3 million.

The 80-year-old leftist appears to have made up much of the difference through what his allies had identified as his main opportunity: persuading his voters to turn out.

After a record abstention rate of 21.08% in the first round, which disproportionately affected Lula voters because they tend to live farther from polling stations, the rate fell to 19.21%.

Lula is the first candidate in Brazil’s democratic history to overturn a first-round defeat in a runoff.

Brazil’s electoral court announced a short while ago that the leftist president has won against the far-right Bolsonaro and been elected for a fourth non-consecutive term.