Brazil’s heated presidential election will go to second round

São Paulo, Brazil CNN — Brazil’s polarizing presidential race will go to a second round run-off after no candidate achieved a majority of more than 50% of the ballot in an election that saw long lines at polling booths as millions turned out to vote.

With more than 99% of the vote counted on Sunday evening, results released by Brazil’s Electoral Superior Court (TSE) showed left-wing candidate and former president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva held a slight lead over right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro – but not enough to cross the threshold to victory.

The latest official count put Lula ahead with 48.4% of the vote versus 43.2% for Bolsonaro, a divisive figure often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics.”

Bolsonaro’s result was eight points higher than the latest Datafolha poll showed on Saturday, while Lula’s was two to three points lower than predicted by polls.

Lula told reporters in Sao Paulo Sunday night that he was confident of winning the run-off vote to be held on October 30.

“It will be important (to have a second round) because we will have the chance to do a face-to-face debate with the current president to know if he will keep on telling lies,” said Lula, who was Brazil’s leader from 2002 to 2010.

In a brief news conference Sunday, Bolsonaro said the voting reflected the poor economic conditions felt by poorer Brazilians, and promised to appeal to voters who are worried about rising prices.

“We have a second round ahead where everything becomes the same, the (television advertising) time for each side becomes the same. And now we are going to show it better for the Brazilian population, especially the most affected class, the consequence of the ‘stay at home, we’ll see the economy later’ policy,” Bolsonaro said.

Bolsonaro, who has routinely discredited the Brazilian electoral system and threatened to not accept its results, managed to beat Lula in the southeast states, the most populous of the country.

More than 123 million Brazilians waited in long lines to vote in the world’s fourth largest democracy, while another 32 million abstained. According to TSE President Alexandre de Moraes, the extensive queues were caused by new biometric security checks and higher than expected voter turnout.

Several other presidential candidates were in the running but trailed far behind the two frontrunners.