Brazil presidential election heads to runoff

Brazil will hold a presidential runoff on October 25 after no candidate secured more than half of the valid votes in the first round.

According to the Superior Electoral Court, with more than 99 percent of ballots counted, Liberal Party candidate Flavio Bolsonaro received about 47 percent of the valid vote. Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party came second with about 45 percent.

Flavio Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. He will face Lula directly in the second round, with the incumbent seeking another presidential term.

A candidate must receive more than 50 percent of valid votes to win in the first round. Since neither reached that threshold, the two leading candidates will compete in the October 25 runoff.

Since Brazil introduced its two-round presidential election system in 1988, Fernando Henrique Cardoso has been the only candidate to win outright in the first round, doing so in 1994 and 1998.

According to CCTV+, the first-round result showed a narrow gap between the two leading candidates. The runoff will decide who leads Latin America's largest economy for the next presidential term.