With 92 percent counted, Flávio leads Lula and Brazil heads for a 25 October runoff

With 92 percent of polling stations counted in Brazil's presidential first round, Flávio Bolsonaro stood at 47.8 percent of valid votes and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at 44.1 percent, BBC News Brasil reported from the live count on Sunday night. Neither figure is an absolute majority. Under the electoral code, a candidate must pass 50 percent of valid votes on the first Sunday in October or face the runner-up three weeks later. That second round is fixed for 25 October.

The early hours of the count had looked different. Reuters, citing the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, said that with 41.57 percent of stations in, Flávio led on 50.41 percent to Lula's 41.44 percent. The Guardian's tracker, still at 10.9 percent of districts, had him on 51.09 percent, or 6,473,688 votes, against Lula's 40.67 percent, or 5,154,036. Those snapshots came from states where his vote is stronger and where transmission ran ahead. As the Northeast and other Lula areas came in, the lead narrowed. By the time BBC News Brasil marked nearly 92 percent counted, the gap was 3.7 points, not 9.

Valid votes exclude blank and null ballots. That is the TSE metric that decides whether a first-round win exists. A candidate can lead the raw total and still fall short of the bar. Flávio's early prints sat just over 50 percent of valid votes and then slipped under it. Until the TSE closes the count, the first-round result is a projection, not a certificate. The direction of the remaining 8 percent is what will decide whether anyone can still claim a Sunday victory. On the numbers already in, a runoff is the likely path.

About 159 million Brazilians were eligible to vote, Anadolu reported before polls opened. Stations ran from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Brasília time. The TSE said the day passed without incidents and without signs of foreign interference. Lula, 80, is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term. Flávio, 45, a senator from Rio de Janeiro, is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after the 2022 election. An Atlas/Bloomberg poll published on 3 October had put Lula at 47 percent of valid votes and Flávio at 44.1 percent in the first round, and at 50.1 to 49.9 in a runoff, inside a one-point margin of error.

Other names on the presidential ballot stayed in single digits in the partial count the Guardian published. Augusto Cury of Avante had 2.98 percent, Ronaldo Caiado of the PSD 2.4 percent, Renan Santos of Missão 2.3 percent, and Romeu Zema of Novo 0.31 percent. Their voters now become the pool both finalists will chase before 25 October.

Governor races moved faster than the presidential count in several states. BBC News Brasil reported Tarcísio de Freitas of Republicanos re-elected in São Paulo with 62.8 percent, against Fernando Haddad of the PT on 36.2 percent, with 90 percent counted. Jorginho Mello was re-elected in Santa Catarina on 68.3 percent. Rafael Fonteles of the PT held Piauí on 70 percent. Fábio Mitidieri of the PSD held Sergipe on 59 percent. Daniel Vilela of the MDB held Goiás on 58.8 percent. In Amapá, Dr. Furlan of the PSD was elected with 62 percent. Espírito Santo and the Federal District were headed to their own 25 October runoffs: Lorenzo Pazolini against Ricardo Ferraço in the first, Celina Leão against Leandro Grass in the second.

The presidential ballot also fills the vice-presidency, all 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 54 Senate seats. Those congressional numbers will shape what either man can pass if he wins on 25 October. A Lula fourth term would still need a workable bloc in a Congress that has not given him a stable majority. A Flávio win would put the Liberal Party in the Planalto with a father in prison and a foreign-policy argument Lula has already framed as a defence of sovereignty against pressure from Washington.

The count that matters tonight is the TSE's valid-vote total, not the early state-weighted prints. If the last stations leave both men under 50 percent, Brazil has 21 days of a two-candidate race, with the first television debate calendar and the redistribution of the smaller parties' votes still to be set.