Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro has won Brazil's presidential election. But who is he?

Far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro has won a sweeping victory in Brazil's presidential election.

The former army captain won 55.2% of the vote against 44.8% for Fernando Haddad of the left-wing Workers' Party.

Mr Bolsonaro's pledge to fight crime and corruption following a string of scandals have won him mass support.

However critics are worried by his praise of Brazil's former dictatorship, and by his comments on race, women and homosexuality.

In one infamous incident in 2015 he told a fellow lawmaker she was too ugly to rape.

Mr Bolsonaro's controversial comments, his pro-gun stance and his populist approach to politics have led to some media dubbing him "Trump of the Tropics".

President Trump himself took to Twitter on Monday to praise the Brazilian president-elect.

For his supporters, Mr Bolsonaro is a politician who they say will bring much needed change to the country - a swing to the right after four elections won by the left.

For the past four years, Brazil has been consumed by a criminal investigation - known as Operation Car Wash - that has uncovered massive corruption.

Dozens of business and political leaders have been jailed. Among them was former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was barred from standing in the election.

Read more:

How did the result break down?

Sorry, your browser cannot display this content. Presidential Election Results % valid votes, excluding blank and invalid votes Click on the states for more detailed results BOLSONAROHADDAD

Who is Bolsonaro and what is he likely to do in office?

The 63-year-old leads the Social Liberal Party (PSL), an anti-establishment group that combines social conservatism and pro-market policies.

Mr Bolsonaro is a deeply polarising figure who has had a divisive effect on Brazilians with both supporters and opponents taking to the streets to make their voices heard.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rival supporters argue after Brazil poll result

He has in the past defended the killing of opponents to the country's former military regime and said he is "in favour of dictatorship".

But after the results came in, he told supporters he would be a "defender of democracy" and uphold the constitution.

One of his flagship policies is to restore security by relaxing gun laws and suggested that "every honest citizens" should be able to own a gun.

He has promised to reduce state intervention in the economy and indicated that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

He takes over on 1 January 2019.

Messy future

Analysis by BBC's Katy Watson in Sao Paulo

Image copyright EPA

Is there a chance Mr Bolsonaro could soften his stance, now he's won power? Few experts believe it. You only need to look to another firebrand in the continent for guidance.

"The things that Donald Trump outlined and the signals that he gave during the campaign he carried through with," says Kyle Pope of the Columbia Journalism Review, who has studied parallels between Brazil's new president and the leader of the US.

Many say a comparison with Mr Trump is inaccurate. Instead, they say Mr Bolsonaro is more akin to Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.

Whatever the comparison, what is clear is that country's sharp swing to the right will resonate beyond Brazil as another populist takes power.

And the opposition will redouble efforts not to take away the gains that country's made since it returned to democracy 30 years ago.

The future looks messy for Brazil.

Does Mr Bolsonaro have backing in Congress?

Yes and no.

On the one hand, his PSL party achieved a remarkable breakthrough in this month's legislative election, increasing its representation from one to 52 seats in the lower house.

However Mr Haddad's PT remains the largest party, with 56 seats.

But most ominously for Mr Bolsonaro, there will be a record 30 parties represented in the next Congress.

This suggest that finding backing for legislation could be difficult for the new president.

What about reaction from outside Brazil?

A number of Latin American leaders congratulated Mr Bolsonaro:

Argentine President Mauricio Macri described the poll results as Mr Bolsonaro's "triumph"

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera congratulated Brazilians for a "clean and democratic election"

Colombia's Ivan Duque welcomed the result and called for the two countries' "brotherly relations" to be strengthened further

Mexican outgoing President President Enrique Peña Nieto hailed Brazil's "democratic strength"

Peru's Martin Vizcarra wished Mr Bolsonaro "full success"

Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro extended his "congratulations to the people of Brazil"

Amnesty International said that taking into account his campaign pledges, Mr Bolsonaro's victory could pose a "huge risk" to Brazil's indigenous peoples, LGBT communities, black youth, women, activists and civil society organisations.</s>Millions of Brazilians vote on Sunday, choosing between two very different politicians to be their next president.

Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro faces leftist Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party in the second and final round of presidential elections.

While polls have been narrowing, Mr Bolsonaro remains in the lead.

The election has been over-shadowed by corruption scandals and a knife attack on Mr Bolsonaro in which he lost 40% of his blood and needed emergency surgery.

Brazilians will also be asked to vote for governors in all 27 states and all 513 seats in the chamber of deputies.

63-year-old ex-army captain Mr Bolsonaro is from the small, conservative Social Liberal Party. His provocative statements on abortion, race, migration, homosexuality and gun laws have earned him the nickname "Trump of the Tropics."
• Brazil election: Five things you need to know

55-year-old Mr Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor and education minister, is the son of a family of Lebanese immigrants.

He replaced former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, currently serving a 12-year prison sentence on corruption charges, as the presidential candidate for the Workers' Party less than a month before the first round of the election.

Two final opinion polls released on Saturday showed that support for Mr Haddad had increased, though Mr Bolsonaro was still expected to win about 55% of the vote.

"This thing is going to turn around," Mr Haddad told supporters at his final campaign rally.

Mr Bolsonaro made his final pitch on social media. He has not campaigned in public since he was stabbed in the stomach at a rally in September, sending him to the hospital for three weeks.

"God willing, tomorrow will be our new independence day," he tweeted.

If the polls are right, this election is for Mr Bolsonaro to lose.

He has capitalised on the hatred towards the left-wing Workers' Party. With its founder Lula da Silva in jail for corruption, he has painted the party as responsible for Brazil's growing violence, economic woes and political graft.

On Saturday, Fernando Haddad warned voters that Mr Bolsonaro's proposal of arming Brazilians would only increase crime. His supporters, though, don't care - they're hungry for change and believe Mr Bolsonaro can deliver it.

Brazil has been rocked by an increase in violent crime and a huge political bribery scandal that has tainted the entire political class. The economy shrank by nearly 7% during the country's worst-ever recession in 2015.

Voting is mandatory for the country's 147 million eligible voters, with results expected around 22:00 GMT.

The winner will replace President Michel Temer from the conservative Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (MDB), who leaves office with an approval rating of just 2%.</s>RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Brazilians elected a president who is a far-right, ardently pro-Israel veteran pol who once declared “My heart is green, yellow, blue and white,” in a reference to the colors of the Israeli and Brazilian flags.

Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old seven-term congressman who built his campaign around pledges to crush corruption and crime, secured over 55 percent of the vote, an 11 percent lead over his far-left rival Fernando Haddad.

“We cannot continue flirting with socialism, communism, populism and leftist extremism … We are going to change the destiny of Brazil,” said Bolsonaro in his late Sunday night acceptance speech broadcast from his home in Rio, which showed a Jewish menorah in the background of the video.

Highly divisive among Jewish voters, the Conservative lawmaker — whose middle name, Messias, literally means “messiah” — won the ballot after a drama-filled election that looks set to radically reforge the future of the world’s fourth biggest democracy, leaving nearly 15 years of far-left governments behind.

“I have just congratulated president-elect @jairbolsonaro for the historic victory won today. Once the election is over, it is time for all, united, to continue working for Brazil,” Brazil’s President Michel Temer, who rose to power to replace impeached Dilma Rousseff, tweeted overnight.

For many Jewish voters, Bolsonaro has always been a dream president. He has declared he will move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. His first international trip as president, he said, will be to Israel, with which he will seek to broaden the dialogue. And he promised to close the Palestinian embassy in Brasilia.

“Is Palestine a country? Palestine is not a country, so there should be no embassy here,” Bolsonaro said weeks ago. “You do not negotiate with terrorists.”

RELATED: How ‘Brazil’s Trump’ is winning over Jewish voters

The pol’s victory means, many hope, the longtime anti-Israel sentiment of far-left Rouseff and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption and money laundering. One low point in Brazil-Israel relations came in 2014, when the Brazilian government recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations during that summer’s war in Gaza, and a former special adviser to Rouseff described Israeli military actions there as a “massacre.”

“Bolsonaro stood out among the many candidates for including the State of Israel in the major speeches he made during the campaign,” Israel’s honorary consul in Rio, Osias Wurman, told JTA last week. “He is a lover of the people and the State of Israel.”

On Sept. 6, Bolsonaro was stabbed and seriously injured during a street rally while campaigning. After receiving local emergency treatment, Bolsonaro chose to be transferred to a Jewish hospital in Sao Paulo to recover from life-threatening injuries. The fact that the politician declined treatment offered by the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, an elite hospital commonly chosen by senior politicians, led to conspiracy theories in social media.

The most radical among Bolsonaro’s nearly 10 million followers suggested his life would be at risk at a place “by the hands of Arab and Muslim doctors,” adding that at the Jewish-led Albert Einstein hospital, Israel’s Mossad would be able to protect him.

Dubbed “Brazil’s Trump,” Brazil’s president-elect is referred to by opponents as “extreme” and “a risk” to democracy. The former army captain waxes nostalgic about Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime, and has derided gays, women and minorities. Some have gone so far as to liken him to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Bolsonaro’s supporters usually refer to him by the nickname “Mito,” from the word myth or legend. His three sons, also politicians, have been photographed wearing T-shirts with messages in Hebrew. One of them was elected senator earlier this month.</s>Brazil's voters cast ballots today in the second round of the nation's presidential election that could see a far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, elected.</s>Baku. 28 October. REPORT.AZ / Thousands of polling stations have opened early this morning in Brazil in within the second round of presidential elections, Report informs citing the RIA Novosti.

In total, 147.3 million people have the right to vote. Moreover, voting is mandatory for those whose age is 18-70 years, but the penalty for non-attendance is symbolic - about one dollar.

The first round of elections was held on October 7. Then the winner has not been determined, and two candidates are in the second round according to the results of voting— right-wing candidate from the Social Liberal Party Jair Bolsonaro and the candidate of the left Worker’s Party Fernando Hadded. The first scored 46%, while the second-29.3%.</s>RIO DE JANEIRO—Brazilians began voting Sunday in a divisive presidential race expected to elect combative ex-army captain Jair Bolsonaro, shifting the country’s politics sharply to the right.

Mr. Bolsonaro, a champion of Brazil’s 1964-1985 right-wing dictatorship that he once served, has been polling at nearly 60% ahead of Sunday’s runoff vote.</s>Right wing former army captain Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil on Sunday after beating leftist opponent Fernando Haddad in a second round election run-off at the end of a bitter and highly polarized campaign.

Supporters flooded the streets outside Bolsonaro’s home in Rio de Janeiro, letting off fireworks and waving Brazilian flags.

Official results after polls closed gave the controversial 63-year-old Bolsonaro 55.7 percent of the vote with more than 88 percent of the ballots counted as his vow to rescue the country from crisis with a firm grip resonated with Brazil’s 147 million registered voters.

He will take office on January 1, 2019.

Despite repulsing many with his open support of the torture used by Brazil’s former military dictatorship, as well as remarks deemed misogynist, racist and homophobic, Bolsonaro managed to tap into deep anti-establishment anger that propelled him to victory.

Haddad, a 55-year-old former Sao Paulo mayor, had been making up ground after finishing a distant second to Bolsonaro in the first round three weeks ago with just 29 percent compared to 46.

But despite reducing an 18-point deficit two weeks ago to eight to 10 points in an opinion poll published on Saturday, it wasn’t enough for the Workers Party candidate picked to replace the jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“After decades, Brazil finally has a chance to elect a president who truly represents Brazilians’ values,” Bolsonaro had tweeted on Saturday, in his final pitch to voters.

Bolsonaro conducted his entire campaign on social media since an attacker stabbed him in the stomach at a rally in early September, sending him to hospital for three weeks.

On Sunday, he voted at a military academy in Rio de Janeiro, ducking in through a side door to avoid the waiting crowd.

Wearing an army-green jacket, he left with a double thumbs-up, saying only that he could not make a statement for security reasons.

“Democracy is at risk, individual freedom is at risk,” Haddad, 55, had warned after casting his ballot at a school in Sao Paulo, thronged by supporters clutching red and white roses — who briefly scuffled with opponents banging pots and pans in protest.

Bolsonaro outrages a large part of the electorate — and many outside the country — with his overtly misogynistic, homophobic and racist rhetoric.

He once told a lawmaker he opposed that she “wasn’t worth raping;” he has said he would rather see his sons die than come out as gay; and he commented after visiting one black community that they “do nothing — they’re so useless I doubt they can procreate.”

But an even larger portion of voters reject Haddad and the tarnished legacy of his Workers’ Party.

The Latin American giant’s election comes on the heels of its worst-ever recession, a staggering multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal and a year of record-setting violent crime.

Haddad stood as a surrogate for the popular — but disqualified — Lula, who led Brazil through the boom years of 2003 to 2010, before both the country and his left-wing political project went bust.

The highly controversial Lula, who stands accused of masterminding the massive pilfering of state oil company Petrobras, is serving a 12-year sentence for bribery.

Lacking his mentor’s charisma, Haddad struggled to unite opposition to Bolsonaro, despite mounting fears over what the former army officer’s presidency would bring.

Bolsonaro, a veteran congressman, is unabashedly nostalgic for Brazil’s brutal 1964-85 military dictatorship, and has been accused of authoritarian tendencies.

But his law-and-order message has resonated.

“We’re electing our captain. He’s going to sweep out all the corrupt politicians, the crooks, the communists,” said supporter Alvaro Cardoso, 55, at the polling station where Bolsonaro cast his ballot, wearing a black T-shirt with the candidate’s name and a skull.

Feelings on the other side were equally strong.

“As a black and LGBT woman, I’m frightened” by Bolsonaro, said Luiza Rodrigues Santana, a 23-year-old student in Brasilia.

“He incites hatred. If he becomes president, he’ll legitimize all that hatred inside people.”

The election was decided as much by Brazilians voting against something as for it.

“I don’t really like either candidate,” Elias Chaim, 23, an engineering student and music producer, told AFP at a polling station facing Rio’s Copacabana beach.

But he voted for Haddad because of Bolsonaro’s “discourse of hate and intolerance.”

In Sao Paulo, the economic capital, Marcos Kotait, 40, a publicist, said he had “never seen such a polarized election.”

“It used to be people would actually vote for what they wanted, and not just against something,” he said.

Outgoing President Michel Temer, himself implicated in corruption, is set to leave office on January 1 as the most unpopular president in Brazil’s modern democracy.

The center-right leader took over from Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, after she was impeached in 2016 for financial wrongdoing in office, ending the Workers’ Party’s 13 years in power. AFP</s>BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilians voted on Sunday in the most polarized election in decades as anger over corruption and crime were expected to carry Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency, marking a dramatic swing to the right in the world’s fourth-largest democracy.

Bolsonaro’s sudden rise has been propelled by rejection of the leftist Workers Party (PT) that ran Brazil for 13 of the last 15 years and was ousted two years ago in the midst of the country’s worst recession and political graft scandal.

His leftist rival Fernando Haddad, standing in for the jailed PT founder and former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been trailing Bolsonaro since the first-round vote three weeks ago.

“I want to take the PT out,” said Celina Ceccon, who previously supported Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, but voted for Bolsonaro in this election

“There was a lot of corruption, bad things, so much stealing. There’s got to be a change,” said the 74-year-old resident of the capital Brasilia.

Bolsonaro voted in a military district in Rio de Janeiro, greeted by supporters shouting “legend” and “president.”

“The expectation today is the same as I saw in the streets: victory,” Bolsonaro said, briefly addressing reporters.

The last round of opinion surveys on Saturday showed Haddad narrowing a wide polling gap. Endorsements from leading legal figures in Brazil’s unprecedented fight against political corruption also raised hopes among Haddad’s supporters that he could pull off what would be a stunning upset.

Haddad has reduced Bolsonaro’s lead from 12 to 8 percentage points in five days, according to the Ibope polling firm that gave him 46 percent of voter support compared with Bolsonaro’s 54 percent. A Datafolha poll also released late Saturday showed Bolsonaro had 55 percent and Haddad 45 percent.

Haddad told reporters in Sao Paulo early on Sunday that the opinion polls represent an important swing in momentum in his favor.

“I am confident that we will have a big result today,” he said. “Let’s fight until the last minute.

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT) and the last will close in far western Brazil at 7 p.m. Brasilia time.

Laura Chinchilla, the former president of Costa Rica who is head of the Organization of American States’ Electoral Observation Mission, said the vote had been calm and orderly across the country, which has suffered a spate of partisan violence during the campaign.

While Haddad has gained traction in the polls, he failed to win the key endorsement of center-left former candidate Ciro Gomes, a former governor of Ceará state in the northeast, which would have given him a big lift in Brazil’s poorest region.

He did, however, win the backing of Rodrigo Janot, Brazil’s former prosecutor general under whose watch unprecedented corruption prosecutions took place.

Popular anti-corruption judge, Joaquim Barbosa, who jailed several top PT leaders for corruption, also came out for Haddad, in a blow for Bolsonaro, who has positioned himself as the graft-busting candidate.

Many Brazilians are concerned that Bolsonaro, an admirer of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship and a defender of its use of torture on leftist opponents, will trample on human rights, curtail civil liberties and muzzle freedom of speech.

The 63-year-old seven-term congressman has vowed to crack down on crime in Brazil’s cities and farm belt by granting police more autonomy to shoot at criminals. He also wants to let more Brazilians buy weapons to fight crime.

University student Daniel Castro Correa de Souza, who voted for Gomes in the first round, opted for Haddad on Sunday in an effort to stop Bolsonaro.

“Bolsonaro represents a rupture in democracy, a threat to democracy, because he has authoritarian thoughts. I can’t agree with that,” said 21-year-old Souza, after casting his vote in Brasilia.</s>Brazil’s right-wing presidential candidate for the Social Liberal Party (PSL), Jair Bolsonaro …Read more via The Guardian Nigeria Newspaper – https://ift.tt/2CNI7PZ Get more World News</s>At exactly 19h18m, Sunday 28 October, the Electoral Superior Tribunal, TSE, minister Rosa Weber stated that Jair Bolsonaro, candidate for the “Brazil above all, God above all of us” coalition was mathematically elected president of Brazil. The new president is to take office next January first, for the period from 2019 to 2022.

At that precise time and with 94.44% of votes counted, Minister Rosa Weber said that Jair Bolsonaro had obtained 55.205.640 votes, equivalent to 55.54% of cast votes, while Fernando Haddad from the Coalition People happy again, had obtained 44.193.523 votes, equivalent to 44.46% of cast ballots.

Based on these numbers, candidate Jair Bolsonaro was effectively at that moment, mathematically president elect of Brazil.

Summing up Sunday's election the TSE president said that the runoff took place in the most absolute normality and transparency with the expected situations of the electoral process in a country with continental dimensions such as Brazil. Ms Weber also mentioned that there were 147,3 million Brazilians registered to vote in the first round and the runoff, with 454,400 electoral circuits in the 26 states of the Federation and the Federal District.

Ms Weber also released abstention provisional numbers in the second round of the election and at the moment of making them public: 25.834.712, equivalent to 21.07% of the electorate. In the first round abstentions reached 29.941.171 or 20.33%. It was also mentioned that 4.658 of electronic voting machines had to be replaced this Sunday which is a number slightly higher than that of the first round, 4.099.

The TSE president then thanked all participants in the electoral process and had special words for all those voters who turned out as protagonists of the major party of our democracy. Likewise with the OAS Observers mission and international visitors who followed the electoral process both in the first and second rounds.

Another member of the TSE, Minister Dias Toffoli followed but with a more incisive speech criticizing all those unfair and dishonest attacks against the Electoral Justice during the process and called upon the president elect, as his first action, to swear responsibility and abidance to the Constitution since it is a moment of union, serenity and to combat radicalism and intolerance.

Attorney General Raquel Dogde pointed out that the Brazilian society had much advanced during the long electoral process which is a precious legacy that the president elect is receiving from the people and he must learn to honor. Dodge also underlines that Brazilian institutions are strong, and reaffirmed the independence and autonomy of the Public Prosecution which remains at the service and interests of society, underlining its constitutional role with the new government.

Finally the Public Security minister, Raul Jungmann said that the election runoff has been of a memorable peacefulness and the storm of fake news from the first round was not repeated in the second round on 28 October”.
Brazilians elect Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party as president, with 55% of the vote, in the second round of the presidential election.