Brazil elections: Police split up supporters in Geneva
Geneva police had to intervene on Sunday to separate supporters of right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The supporters of the two politicians, who are battling it out in a presidential election, clashed at the Geneva polling station for the Brazilian community.
No arrests appeared to have been made, but the atmosphere was tense, said Jamil Chade, European correspondent for a major Brazilian media group. Chade shot this video:
According to Chade, who was on the spot when the votes were counted, former president Lula received 1,981 votes in Geneva, while Bolsonaro received 1,930. At the polling station in Zurich, Lula reportedly won 47% of the vote compared to 39.4% for Bolsonaro.
Polarised election
The second round of the presidential election kicked off on Monday after Bolsonaro outperformed polling and prevented Lula from winning an outright victory in the first round of voting.
The unexpectedly strong showing by Bolsonaro on Sunday dashed hopes for a quick resolution to the deeply polarised election in the world’s fourth-largest democracy.
With 99.9% of electronic votes counted, Lula had taken 48.4% of votes versus 43.2% for Bolsonaro. As neither got a majority of support, the race goes to a run-off vote on October 30.
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