By Ricardo Brito, Luciana Magalhaes and Brendan O'Boyle
BRASILIA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took an early lead in Brazil's presidential runoff on Sunday evening, as results began reporting after a Supreme Court-mandated pause injected confusion into an already tight and tense runoff race.
With just over 5% of tallies reported, Lula was leading right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, with around 51.16% versus Bolsonaro's
48.84%.
A victory for Bolsonaro, 45, would extend a wave of right-wing victories for Latin American candidates friendly to US President Donald Trump, while a fourth mandate for Lula would be a bulwark against Washington's influence in the region as his government has pushed back on US trade and security policies.
Yet the contest threatens to be overshadowed by legal disputes after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, who was formerly Lula's lawyer, accepted a request by Lula's campaign to extend voting, pointing to public transportation issues in three cities in the state of Bahia.
Zanin's decision landed right around the election's 5 p.m. Brasilia time (2000 GMT) cutoff, creating confusion as some polling stations had already closed.
In a subsequent ruling, Zanin said those stations would remain shut, allowing authorities to begin tallying those votes, but that polling stations that had not closed after the official cutoff could keep receiving voters for an additional two hours.
Zanin's ruling led the electoral court, or TSE, to pause the count for two hours.
PAUSE ADDS UNCERTAINTY
The unexpected voting extension injects uncertainty into a Brazilian electoral process still grappling with the fallout from 2022, when Jair Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat to Lula. His supporters later invaded government buildings in protest against the result, and Bolsonaro received a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup.
Two legal experts told Reuters the extension of voting hours and allegations around disrupted public transportation could draw legal challenges.
“Depending on the election result, there is a possibility that the losing side might attempt to contest the outcome, arguing that many people were unable to vote even with the extended deadline," said Vera Chemim, a constitutional lawyer in São Paulo.
The senator's brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, speaking on a live stream on his YouTube channel, questioned why the Supreme Court had ruled in a process overseen by the country's federal electoral court: "Strange, isn’t it?" he said. "It’s hard to imagine what the legal basis for this could possibly be. It doesn’t inspire credibility.”
Lula had asked electoral authorities to extend voting in at least nine states after his campaign alleged some officials reduced election-day public transportation, impacting voters' ability to get to the polls.
Earlier on Sunday, a court in Bahia, a Lula stronghold in the Northeast, ordered the arrest of a top transportation official in the city of Salvador over allegations that he directed a reduction in the city’s bus fleet.
In comments before Zanin's decision, Lula said "something abominable is happening" in this election.
Flavio Bolsonaro had also asked for voting to be extended in at least three states, citing bad weather.
WASHINGTON IS WATCHING
Lula and his allies see Sunday’s runoff as a chance to stem Latin America's conservative drift.
Reuters on Saturday revealed a campaign within Trump's State Department to help get the Bolsonaros back in power.
Trump has so far declined to endorse a candidate. Asked on Sunday who he hoped would win, Trump declined to say.
"I don’t want to get into that, but we are watching," he told reporters in Washington.
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin, Luciana Magalhaes and Lisandra Paraguassu in Sao Paulo; Ricardo Brito, Bernardo Caram and Brendan O'Boyle in Brasilia; Marta Nogueira in Rio de Janeiro, Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, Editing by Alistair Bell, Christina Fincher, Andrew Heavens, Nick Zieminski and Aurora Ellis)
