Spain

Madrid, October 5, 2026. For the Spanish press, the notable fact of the first round of the Brazilian election on Sunday, October 4, is the gap with expectations. HuffPost España reports that Flávio Bolsonaro "surprises": with 98.36% of the ballots counted, the 45-year-old senator obtained 47.31% of the votes against 44.83% for Lula, according to official data collected by EFE, totaling over 55.5 million votes and approximately three million more than the outgoing president. The final count, reported later, gave around 47% against 45%. Since neither of them exceeded 50%, they will face off on October 25.

ElDiario.es recounts a two-part evening. With 41.57% of the ballot boxes open, Flávio Bolsonaro showed 50.41% and Lula 41.44%, a result that "fell like a bucket of cold water" in the Workers' Party camp. The media recalls that the count is slower in the Northeast, a left-wing stronghold, and in the interior of Amazonia, and that analysts were expecting a comeback from Lula, as in 2022. HuffPost notes similarly that the percentage of the far-right candidate decreased as the votes from the Northeast arrived. Expansión, more economic and factual, relays the initial results (1.70% of the electorate) showing Bolsonaro's lead, at 49.19% against 42.19%.

The gap with the polls is detailed: Quaest gave 46% to Lula and 45% to Flávio the day before, CNT/MDA even mentioned a Lula victory in the first round (47.8% of valid votes), but ElDiario.es observes that all the surveys showed a favorable wave for the Bolsonarist candidate.

The campaign is presented as an opposition between "hope and fear". Flávio Bolsonaro has taken up his father's 2018 slogan "Muda Brasil"; Lula's team has toughened its tone by associating him with weapons, insecurity, and militias, with a mini-documentary titled "Peligro, mira esto antes de votar".

Lula, from a hotel in the center of São Paulo, acknowledged: "Estaba convencido de que iba a ganar en primera vuelta", qualified the result as "unexpected" and launched: "A partir de mañana comienza la nueva campaña". He is running in his seventh presidential election and says he is very comfortable in the face-to-face. Bolsonaro reads his lead as a sign that "Brasil quiere un cambio".