Right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro led left-wing incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s first-round vote, forcing an October 25 run-off.

Bolsonaro, 45, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, won 47 percent to Lula’s 45.1 percent.

The result defies polls that had put the 80-year-old incumbent ahead by about 3 points.

Neither reached the 50 percent threshold.

“Brazil wants change, and I am very happy with the results,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia on Sunday.

He also saluted “the end of the era of [Lula’s] Workers’ Party.

Lula is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, four years after he narrowly defeated Jair Bolsonaro.

Analysts said Lula faces an uphill battle to win over voters from 10 other candidates and 30 million non-voters.

These, who constitute 21% of the electorate, stayed home.

“Unless something very unusual happens in the next three weeks, Flavio Bolsonaro is set to win,” Oliver Stuenkel of the Getulio Vargas Foundation told the media.

He noted that no candidate who came second in the first round has won the presidency since 1989.