Socialist Luis Inacio da Silva's lead widened Monday in returns that set him up for an ideologically heated runoff for the presidency with the conservative front-runner.
With 99.3 percent of the ballots counted, da Silva, of the radical left Workers Party, had locked up second place with 16.1 percent of the vote. He had a 400,000-vote lead over the third-place candidate, Leonel Brizola of the center-left Democratic Labor Party.Fernando Collor de Mello, of the rightist National Reconstruction Party, won the most votes in Wednesday's elections, gaining 28 percent. Strongly backed by business owners and the rural oligarchs that dominate the countryside, he had a wide margin from the beginning.
Brizola had 15.5 percent of the vote in this country of 150 million people.
Jose Francisco Rezek, president of the Superior Electoral Court, said the remaining votes would not change the outcome because they are from da Silva strongholds.
With no one receiving a majority, Collor de Mello and da Silva will meet in a Dec. 17 runoff. The winner takes office in March.