Senator Flávio Bolsonaro announced this Sunday that he will not recognize his defeat against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of Brazil's presidential elections and that he will request the annulment of the runoff, as reported by Reuters.
Lula received 51.78% of the votes—about 64.2 million ballots—compared to Bolsonaro's 48.22%, with a difference of approximately 4.42 million votes and 99.98% of the ballots counted.
With this victory, the president secured a non-consecutive fourth term, also becoming the first candidate since the return of Brazilian democracy to lose the first round and win the runoff.
The trigger for the rejection was a decision by the Supreme Federal Court magistrate Cristiano Zanin, who at 5:01 PM on Sunday ordered the voting to be extended by two additional hours, until 7:00 PM Brasilia time, following a request from Lula's campaign that cited issues with public transportation for voters.
The Electoral Court of Brazil criticized the actions of the magistrate, according to EFE, but urged respect for the outcome.
In a video shared on social media and posted by his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro with the succinct message "NO!", Flávio directly targeted Zanin: "What happened today was not normal; it was even unacceptable. A Supreme Court minister, for the first time in history, a former lawyer of Lula, makes a swift move at the request of a former partner and changes the rules of the game in the middle of the game."
Bolsonaro emphasized that Zanin is not a member of the Superior Electoral Court and that his intervention constituted an "outrage" to specialized justice: "At 5:01 PM, Minister Zanin, who is not part of the Superior Electoral Court, trampling on specialized justice, made a decision to extend the elections by two hours. That had never happened in Brazil's history."
The senator also reported a violation of equality among voters in different states, as in some locations the polls were not reopened, and he accused that the prosecutors from his party were removed from the counting rooms: "Our Liberal Party prosecutors were taken out of the rooms the moment the decision was made. So there are many things to clarify before Brazil simply acknowledges this mess that occurred in these elections."
The Electoral Prosecutor's Office also opposed the extension ordered by Zanin, who was Lula's personal lawyer before being appointed a magistrate of the Supreme Federal Court in 2023.
Flávio Bolsonaro's rejection strongly evokes what happened after the 2022 elections, when his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, lost to Lula 50.9% to 49.1% and did not acknowledge the defeat for over 44 hours.
His supporters blocked roads in 26 of the 27 states of the country, and on January 8, 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed and vandalized the Palácio do Planalto, the Congress, and the Supreme Federal Court in Brasília. More than 1,200 people were convicted for planning, financing, or participating in those events.
Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced in September 2025 to 27 years and three months in prison for attempting a coup d'état, and the Supreme Federal Court upheld the sentence in November of that year. His political disqualification until 2030 paved the way for Flávio as the candidate of the Liberal Party in 2026.
The new mandate of Lula will begin on January 5, 2027, although the shadow of a formal challenge is already looming over the transition.
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