Brazil’s Leftist President Declared Winner Over Bolsonaro After Suspicious Election Ruling

Talk about moving the goalposts in the fourth quarter.

Brazil’s leftist octogenarian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pulled off an unprecedented comeback Sunday to grab a fourth term. He edged out conservative Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro 51.8% to 48.2% in a presidential runoff marked by last-minute chaos at the polls.

Now, the whole election is headed for the courts.

Bolsonaro, the son of confined former President Jair Bolsonaro, isn’t buying the results. He immediately refused to concede and vowed to take legal action to get the results overturned.

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At the center of the storm is Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula’s former criminal defense lawyer, whom Lula appointed to the high court in 2023. Just three minutes after polls closed at 5 p.m. in Brasília, Zanin ordered a nationwide two-hour voting extension.

Both camps had asked for more time. Lula’s side cited bus disruptions in cities that leaned his way, and a judge ordered the arrest of a Salvador transit official after at least 75 public buses were kept in their garages on Election Day. Bolsonaro’s side cited heavy rains in the south, where he dominated.

But Lula’s campaign asked for an extension in every state, while Bolsonaro’s asked only for certain cities in three states. Zanin gave everyone two more hours, even though such requests normally go to Brazil’s electoral court, not the Supreme Court. The electoral court’s chief, Kassio Nunes Marques, who was appointed by Jair Bolsonaro, agreed.

Election workers were caught unaware. Polling stations had already shut down before word of the order arrived, and the release of results was put on hold for two hours. Zanin and the electoral court then had to issue a clarification that the extension applied only to stations that hadn’t closed yet.

Bolsonaro blasted the ruling as changing the rules “in the middle of the game” and said it created a total breach of equality between voters in different cities and states. His campaign chief, Sen. Rogério Marinho, went further, warning against a “judicial coup.” Bolsonaro allies in Congress are now pushing to impeach Zanin.

In the first round of voting earlier this month, Bolsonaro led with 47% to Lula’s 45%. Since Brazil returned to direct presidential elections in 1989, a runner-up has never reversed a first-round deficit to win the runoff. This time, Lula gained ground in all 27 states, adding 10.4 million votes between rounds to Bolsonaro’s 3.7 million. Even the bellwether state of Minas Gerais, which Bolsonaro won by about five percentage points three weeks ago, flipped to Lula by a hair. That left Lula with a 4.4-million-vote edge nationwide.

But voters sent a very different message down the ballot. Brazilians handed Bolsonaro’s Right-wing Liberal Party its biggest congressional bench in decades, making it the largest party in both chambers. They also elected right-of-center governors across much of the country, including at least five from Bolsonaro’s party.

Lula isn’t home free. He faces a Congress dominated by conservatives, a huge mountain of public debt, and half the country convinced judges tipped the scales.