Brazil runoff as it happened: world leaders congratulate Lula on historic election win as Bolsonaro refuses to concede

• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, has vowed that dictatorship and fascism will never return to Brazil after winning a historic fourth term in power by defeating his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro. “This is God’s work – and it’s thanks to all of you,” Lula told tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered in central São Paulo in the early hours of Monday to celebrate his dramatic election comeback.

• A few hours earlier, Lula pulled off the most stunning political fightback in modern Brazilian history, bouncing back from a first-round defeat in early October to trounce Bolsonaro by more than 4m votes in the runoff. Never, since the return of democracy after the 1964-85 military regime, had the first-round loser managed to win the second vote.

• However, Bolsonaro rejected the result, following in the footsteps of his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who refused to concede after losing the 2022 election to Lula and was later convicted of plotting a coup. He called Lula’s victory “sacanagem”, a Portuguese word that roughly translates as “bullshit”.

• The scale of Bolsonaro’s loss, with the senator trailing Lula by over 4 ​million votes, makes it unlikely his efforts to annul the vote will succeed, analysts said. Less than ‌35,000 votes, or some 0.03% of the total, ‌were cast in the extra two hours of voting ordered by the Supreme Court, according to an analysis of electoral records by Insper professor Pedro Burgos.

• Political leaders and governments from across the spectrum were quick to recognise Lula’s victory. Mexico’s leftwing president, Claudia Sheinbaum, tweeted: “Long live democracy, the people of Brazil won.” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, wrote: “The global progressive resurgence has just begun.”

• French president Emmanuel Macron said France and Brazil had “much to build together,” while European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said “democracy and multilateralism have won in Brazil.” The Kremlin welcomed Lula’s re-election and praised him for his contribution ‌to bilateral ties and to BRICS. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated the leftist leader on “remarkable election results” and said he looked forward to expanding cooperation.

• Rampant selling tore through financial markets at the shock result, as investors reversed positions that had largely been built around expectations of a Bolsonaro victory. Brazil’s currency tumbled over 11% against the US dollar in early spot trading, one of its biggest daily declines on record, while the benchmark Bovespa stock ⁠index was down more than 15% in its largest daily percentage drop since 1998.

Nearly three million more people voted in the second round of the Brazilian election than the first.

Here is a graphic that shows how that compares with previous elections in the country:

Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published an analysis showing that only 34,330 votes, or 0.03% of the total, were cast after the original 5pm closing time, an insignificant number compared with the 4.4 million-vote margin by which president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated his opponent.

The decision to extend voting until 7pm so that voters who had been unable to access the mandatory free public transport could cast their ballots is at the heart of far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s attempt to have the election annulled.

However, the president of the electoral court, justice Kassio Nunes Marques, has already said the extension did not affect the result and, like the leaders of other Brazilian institutions including the supreme court and congress, has recognised Lula’s re-election.

So few votes were actually cast because, as the decision to extend voting hours came minutes after 5pm, the vast majority of electronic voting machines had already been closed and could not be reopened.

The analysis was carried out at Folha de S.Paulo’s request by data journalist and university professor Pedro Burgos, who believes most of the 34,000 votes cast after 5pm were from voters who were already queuing when the original voting period ended – meaning they would have been able to vote even without the extension.

The British foreign secretary has described Lula’s victory as “a historic win for the global progressive movement” as he offered his congratulations.

Ed Miliband wrote on X:

Congratulations to @LulaOficial on his re-election.

Together, our two governments have promoted shared values of democracy, social justice and climate action since 2024 and look forward to continuing to do so.

His victory is a historic win for the global progressive movement.

We reported earlier that the Kremlin had sent a warm message to Lula on his re-election, with Valdimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying it was “welcomed”, praising his efforts on the “development of bilateral relations” between the two nations.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also commented. He said:

For us in Ukraine, it is important that Brazil remains active in international affairs and continues to contribute to the effective protection of human rights, the rights of peoples, and the rights of states. We thank Brazil for its unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We look forward to expanding our cooperation.

Dr Marco Vieira, associate professor in international relations at the University of Birmingham in England, has said there are three distinct reasons why the world should pay attention to the election result in Brazil. He said:

First, Lula’s victory reinforces Brazil’s role in spearheading efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest, with clear implications for global climate patterns, food production and the rights of Indigenous populations living in the region.

Second, Lula will now face a major challenge as the leader of South America’s largest economy and one of the region’s most important powers resisting what Trump has called his “Donroe Doctrine”, a policy of expanding US influence and asserting US dominance in the western Hemisphere.

Third, Brazil is likely to continue its international activism through forums such as BRICS and the G20, positioning itself as a leading voice in debates over global governance reform and the defence of multilateral institutions.

In a context of growing global uncertainty, the certainty of Lula leading Brazil for the next four years provides an important source of support for other middle powers seeking to rebuild trust in multilateralism and peaceful cooperation.

Tom Phillips is the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent

I’ve been speaking to Brazil’s former environment minister, the world-renowned environmentalist Marina Silva, here in São Paulo.

A few days ago she told me that if Flávio Bolsonaro were to be elected president he would seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.

On Sunday night Silva was in a far more upbeat mood as she arrived at the hall where Lula was celebrating his election triumph with hundreds of ecstatic supporters.

“My heart is happy and filled with gratitude to God and the Brazilian people,” she told me.

“The thing I most feared was that our Indigenous territories would be invaded again [under another Bolsonaro government]. Now, I am certain that they will be preserved and that there is no risk of illegal miners returning to destroy these populations,” Silva said.

Jair Bolsonaro spent his 2019-22 presidency stripping away environmental and Indigenous protests and was nicknamed “Captain Chainsaw” because of the devastation inflicted on the environment under his watch.

After beating Bolsonaro in the 2022 election, Lula launched a major crackdown to evict illegal miners from Indigenous lands and a broader environmental offensive across the Amazon that cut deforestation to its lowest levels since the late 80s.

Those efforts will now continue.

• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, has staged a dramatic election fightback, defeating his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, to claim a historic fourth term in power.

• However, soon after Brazil’s electoral authority confirmed Lula’s victory, Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat and asked for the results to be annulled.

• Following in the footsteps of his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, who four years ago also refused to acknowledge his defeat to 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.

• His claim apears to be making little headway, with president of the electoral court, justice Kassio Nunes Marques, and the heads of the supreme court, the lower house and the senate all recognising the result and congratulating the incumbent on his re-election.

• The unexpected result has caused some market turmoil, with Brazil’s National Treasury cancelling ⁠auctions of inflation-linked ⁠and fixed-rate government ​bonds, the São Paulo stock exchange halting trading, and Brazil’s real weakened ⁠12.2% ⁠against ​the US ⁠dollar.

• The Kremlin has welcomed Lula’s election victory, saying the leftist president had done “a lot” to develop ties with Russia. Numerous other world leaders have congratulated Lula for his dramatic election win, but so far Donald Trump has remained silent.

Our pictures team has put together this gallery of Lula supporters celebrating his shock election victory.

AFP has a quick snap that the São Paulo stock exchange has halted trading over a sharp drop after the election result.

Brazil’s National Treasury said in ⁠a ⁠statement on ​Monday it has canceled ⁠the conventional auctions of inflation-linked ⁠and fixed-rate government ​bonds scheduled ‌for ‌27 October and ‌29 October, Reuters reports.

Reuters reports that the currency market speculators have had their say on the election result – Brazil’s real weakened ⁠12.2% ⁠against ​the US ⁠dollar in spot trading ⁠early ​on Monday.