Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Brazil's presidential election

(Image credit: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images)

Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right candidate in Brazil's presidential election, was declared the winner Sunday, with 55.7 percent of the vote.

Bolsonaro defeated the leftist Workers' Party candidate, Fernando Haddad. The Workers' Party governed Brazil for more than a decade, and pre-election polls showed that 25 percent of those who supported Bolsonaro were not major fans of his, but rather did not want the Workers' Party to win. Earlier this month, Bolsonaro won the first round of elections, but because he didn't reach the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff, a second election was held. Voting in Brazil is compulsory.

Bolsonaro has a history of making racist, homophobic, and misogynistic remarks, Brazilian media reports, and in September, he was stabbed during a rally. There have been several anti-Bolsonaro protests ahead of Sunday's election, with one organizer, Luka Franca, telling CNN that Bolsonaro "has opened a Pandora box. He's given a voice to an ultra-right population who want to voice their prejudice and annihilate anyone who is different."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.