Brazil's Election Could Determine The Fate of the Amazon

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Brazil's election is going into a second round in which left-winger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will face far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

With almost all the votes counted, Lula had won 48% against Bolsonaro's 43% - a much closer result than opinion polls had suggested.

But Lula fell short of the more than 50% of valid votes needed to prevent a run-off.

Voters now have four weeks to decide which of the two should lead Brazil.

Winning outright in the first round was always going to be a tall order for any candidate - the last time it happened was 24 years ago.

But President Bolsonaro and Lula had given their supporters hope that they could achieve just that.

Both candidates can and will claim that this as a victory, though.

For Lula - who could not run in the 2018 election because he was in prison after being convicted on corruption charges - this spells a remarkable comeback.

And President Bolsonaro, whom opinion polls had shown trailing far behind Lula, will rejoice in the fact that he proved the pollsters wrong, just as he had predicted he would.

This is a drama which has been years in the making. The two men are arch-rivals and spent much of the campaign trading insults.

In the last TV debate before the vote, President Bolsonaro called Lula a thief, in reference to the corruption charges that put him in jail for 580 days before the conviction was annulled.

Lula, in turn, has labelled Mr Bolsonaro a madman.

Not surprisingly, that tension has filtered down into the streets. During the nights before the vote, neighbours here in Rio could be heard shouting "Lula is a thief" and "Out with Bolsonaro" at each other.

Since the two candidates are such polar opposites, much is at stake.