Brazilian President Headed for Runoff
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s leftist president was falling just short of the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff and win re-election yesterday after his party was slammed in the final days of the campaign with charges of corruption and dirty tricks.
With 87% of the ballots counted, President da Silva — also known as “Lula” — had 49.4% of the vote compared to 40.8% for center-right Geraldo Alckmin, Sao Paulo state’s former governor, election authorities said.
Mr. Silva, who had been favored to win due to the economic stability and anti-poverty programs that he brought to Brazil, needed 50% plus one vote to win the contest yesterday.Short of that, he and Mr. Alckmin head to a runoff on October 29.
