Hours after Brazil's electoral court declared Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the winner of the presidential runoff, challenger Flavio Bolsonaro said the result could not be accepted and that his legal team would ask for the election to be annulled, citing a last-minute extension of voting hours.
Flavio Bolsonaro refused to accept defeat on Sunday night after Brazil's electoral court declared President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the winner of the presidential runoff, saying it was impossible to recognise the result and that his legal team would ask for the election to be annulled.
With virtually all votes counted, the court put Lula at 51.8 percent to Bolsonaro's 48.2 percent, a margin of nearly 4.4 million votes, in a runoff that reversed the first round, when Bolsonaro had finished first. Lula, who turns 81 on Tuesday, is set to begin an unprecedented fourth term on January 5, 2027.
Bolsonaro's objection centres on a Supreme Federal Court decision to extend voting by two hours on election day. Justice Cristiano Zanin granted the extension after both campaigns raised access problems, including reduced public transport in some areas and heavy rain in others, but the order arrived minutes before the scheduled 5 p.m. close and some polling stations had already shut down their voting machines, leaving voters unable to cast ballots in places where machines could not be reopened.
The Associated Press reported Bolsonaro's announcement and the court's figures, and separate reporting by Agence France-Presse and Brazilian outlets quoted him calling the extension unacceptable and a break in equality between voters. What has not been reported is a formal annulment filing itself: Bolsonaro said he would ask the courts to annul the vote, and no filing or court ruling on such a request had been published at the time of writing.
The dispute lands on a result the electoral authorities have already declared final, and it sets up a legal fight rather than a recount of a close count. Bolsonaro's camp had earlier criticised the extension, while Lula's campaign argued voters had been prevented from reaching polling stations, and the court has stood by its declaration of the winner.
What happens next is a court process, not another vote: any annulment request would go before the electoral justice system, which would have to weigh whether the uneven extension changed the outcome in a race decided by millions of votes. Until a filing is made public, the practical question is whether Bolsonaro's challenge gathers institutional support or remains a political protest against a result his opponents have already begun celebrating.