Brazilians are heading to the polls for general elections marked by a polarizing race between conservative President Jair Bolsonaro and leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who some pollsters say could attain an outright victory on Sunday.
Polling stations will close at 5 p.m. in Brasilia and simultaneously across the country, with results expected in the following few hours. Nearly 160 million voters will also choose state governors, lower house representatives and senators.
While nine other contestants are running for the country’s top job, the election has become the ultimate battle between two polar opposites of Brazilian politics: Bolsonaro, a former army captain who won by a landslide in 2018 but saw his popularity plunge in the aftermath of the pandemic, and Lula, who ended two presidential terms with an approval rating of nearly 90% before having his reputation tarnished by a major corruption scandal.
