Lula wins Brazil's presidential runoff as Flávio Bolsonaro calls for vote to be annulled

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won re-election as president of Brazil, beating the right-wing senator Flávio Bolsonaro in a runoff vote held on Sunday. A runoff is a second round between the two leading candidates. Reuters reported that Brazil's electoral authority, the body that runs elections, declared Lula the winner.

Lula won 51.8 per cent of the vote, against 48.2 per cent for Bolsonaro. AFP put the gap at around 4.4 million votes. Bolsonaro had come first in the opening round of the election.

Bolsonaro has not accepted the result. He refused to concede defeat, and he called for the elections to be annulled, meaning declared void. BBC News reported his call.

In his response to the result, Lula described his victory as "a defeat for denialism and lies." He did not name a specific allegation in the words attributed to him.

World leaders have congratulated Lula on his reelection victory in the runoff.