Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on course for victory in Tuesday's elections, according to exit polls.
The polls, which forecast the outcome before official results, give his right-wing bloc a slim majority of seats over his opponents.
Such a result would mark a dramatic comeback for Mr Netanyahu, toppled last year after 12 straight years in power.
The election was widely seen as a vote for or against Mr Netanyahu's return.
Official results, which could still produce a different outcome, are expected in the coming hours.
As the polls were announced at 22:00 (20:00 GMT) upbeat music burst from loud speakers at the central venue of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party in Jerusalem.
"It looks like we can be optimistic and have some hope we are about to get a stable coalition with Bibi [Mr Netanyahu] as the prime minister," said 34-year-old Likud supporter David Adler, from Jerusalem.
"But as it's been in the past three years, nothing it sure until the coalition is set up," he cautioned.
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Mr Netanyahu, 73, is one of Israel's most controversial political figures, loathed by many on the centre and left but adored by Likud's grassroots supporters. He is a firm supporter of Israel's settlement-building project in the West Bank, occupied since the 1967 Middle East war. Settlements there are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict - a formula supported by most of the international community, including the Biden administration in the US.
Mr Netanyahu is also currently on trial for alleged corruption, fraud and breach of trust - charges he fiercely denies. His possible partners in a Likud-led coalition government have said they would reform the law, in a move which would bring a halt to his trial.
Israel TV exit polls suggest Mr Netanyahu's bloc will command 61 or 62 seats in the 120-seat knesset (parliament).
According to the polls, Likud stands to be the biggest party, with 30-31 seats, commanding a majority with the support of nationalist and religious parties.
Likud's ultranationalist ally Religious Zionism appears to have won 14 seats, which would make it the third largest party.
The centre-left party of incumbent Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who brought down Mr Netanyahu in elections last year, is forecast to win 24 seats.
If the polls are confirmed, it will stave off the prospect of a sixth election in just four years after analysts predicted deadlock.
It would mark a remarkable turnaround for Mr Netanyahu, who's political future was widely written off after Mr Lapid formed an unlikely alliance of ideologically diverse parties to take power in June 2021.
At the time, Mr Netanyahu vowed to bring it down as quickly as possible. He engineered its collapse after just 12 months.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be on course for victory in Tuesday's elections, according to exit polls.
The polls, which forecast the outcome before official results, give his right-wing bloc a slim majority of seats over his opponents.
Such a result would mark a dramatic comeback for Mr Netanyahu, toppled last year after 12 straight years in power.
The election was widely seen as a vote for or against Mr Netanyahu's return.
Official results, which could still produce a different outcome, are expected in the coming hours.
As the polls were announced at 22:00 (20:00 GMT) upbeat music burst from loud speakers at the central venue of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party in Jerusalem.
"It looks like we can be optimistic and have some hope we are about to get a stable coalition with Bibi [Mr Netanyahu] as the prime minister," said 34-year-old Likud supporter David Adler, from Jerusalem.
"But as it's been in the past three years, nothing it sure until the coalition is set up," he cautioned.
Getty Images
Israel TV exit polls suggest Mr Netanyahu's bloc will command 61 or 62 seats in the 120-seat knesset (parliament).
According to the polls, Likud stands to be the biggest party, with 30-31 seats, commanding a majority with the support of nationalist and religious parties.
Likud's ultranationalist ally Religious Zionism appears to have won 14 seats, which would make it the third largest party.
The centre-left party of incumbent Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who brought down Mr Netanyahu in elections last year, is forecast to win 24 seats.
If the polls are confirmed, it will stave off the prospect of a sixth election in just four years after analysts predicted deadlock.
It would mark a remarkable turnaround for Mr Netanyahu, who's political future was widely written off after Mr Lapid formed an unlikely alliance of ideologically diverse parties to take power in June 2021.
At the time, Mr Netanyahu vowed to do everything in his power to bring it down. He engineered its collapse after just 12 months.
Truckers blocked highways at more than 300 points across Brazil to protest at leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election, as concern lingered over incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro’s failure to recognise his defeat.
More than 24 hours after election officials declared that Lula had won the contest by a narrow margin of 1.8 percentage points, the hard-right president was ignoring appeals by allies to concede and had not appeared in public or made a statement.
Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil’s top electoral official, ordered highway police late on Monday to “take all necessary measures” to clear the truckers’ blockades, which were disrupting traffic in more than 300 points around the country. He threatened to imprison the force’s chief if he did not obey.
Truckers represent a critical group of supporters for Bolsonaro and have benefited from lower fuel costs under his government. There was no sign that other groups were joining the protests and most of the country remained quiet after the election.
Financial markets traded cautiously on Monday, with the Bovespa stock index closing up 1.3 per cent and the Brazilian real firmer against the dollar, as investors waited for clearer signals from veteran leftist Lula on economic policy and from Bolsonaro on his political intentions.
While world leaders including US president Joe Biden sent their congratulations to Lula, his defeated rival spent election night and the following day in silence in Brasília after losing by just 1.8 percentage points, with news reports saying he was struggling to accept his defeat and had refused to receive even close aides.
The social media accounts of the president, a former army captain, and his three politician sons were uncharacteristically quiet apart from a solitary post on Monday by Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator, on Twitter thanking supporters and adding: “Let’s raise our heads and let’s not give up on our Brazil! God in charge!”
Andre Perfeito of brokerage Necton said: “We need to see what Bolsonaro is going to do. We need the president to say something.”
Bolsonaro’s communications minister, Fábio Faria, told the Reuters news agency that the president would not speak until Tuesday.
Sunday’s result marked a dramatic comeback for Lula, who was president for two terms between 2003 and 2010 but subsequently accused of corruption. He served time in prison before his convictions were annulled.
Investors were also waiting to see who Lula would pick for the crucial roles of finance minister and chief of staff, with former health minister Alexandre Padilha and Fernando Haddad, the ex-mayor of São Paulo, said to be in the running.
Lula’s win followed a campaign marred by an avalanche of fake news and mudslinging, prompting frequent interventions from the supreme court and top electoral authority and sparking fears of post-electoral conflict.
Arthur Lira, speaker of the lower house of Congress and one of the few Bolsonaro allies to comment publicly, said it was “time to disarm the passions and reach out to opponents”.
Lula’s victory was warmly received by global leaders, who will welcome Brazil’s return to multilateralism after the diplomatic isolation of the Bolsonaro years.
As well as Biden, president Emmanuel Macron of France and Chinese leader Xi Jinping were quick to congratulate Lula. Biden telephoned Lula on Monday to discuss future co-operation and highlighted in a statement that Brazil’s elections had been “free, fair and credible”. Russian president Vladimir Putin also sent his congratulations. Russia is a big fertiliser supplier to Brazil.
Lula’s win will bring to an end four years of hard-right populism and nationalism under Bolsonaro. It is the latest in a string of races that have turfed out incumbents across Latin America, returning mainly leftwing leaders.
The victory has also raised hopes of an end to illegal deforestation in the Amazon. Lula has pledged to halt the practice following a surge in destruction of the earth’s largest rainforest under Bolsonaro.
Lula won 50.9 per cent of the vote versus 49.1 for Bolsonaro after edging ahead during a cliffhanger three-hour count. He faces huge challenges.
Brazil’s economy is set to slow sharply next year and government finances have been strained by a pre-election spending splurge from Bolsonaro, who succeeded in circumventing a constitutional cap on public spending to try to win re-election.
Global economic headwinds and weaker growth in China, Brazil’s biggest trading partner, will complicate Lula’s challenges in delivering on ambitious promises to boost spending on welfare, health and education. Investors have raised concerns about his refusal so far to commit to firm targets on budget discipline or to detail how he would fund his pledges.
South Korea's police chief has said crowd control during the Itaewon crush was "inadequate" - the first acknowledgement from officials that they did not do enough to prevent it.
Amid growing calls for accountability, Yoon Hee-keun said police response was "disappointing" and that he felt "limitless responsibility about public safety" over what happened.
He vowed a full investigation.
The deadly incident killed 155 people and injured 152 others.
It happened on Saturday night as crowds gathered in an alley in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul, to celebrate Halloween without restrictions for the first time since Covid.
Mr Yoon said police had received numerous calls before the accident happened, alerting them to the seriousness of the situation, but their response was lacking. Seoul police said the first call to South Korea's emergency number came at 18:34 local time and there were 10 more calls over the next three-and-a-half hours.
The police chief said the police would conduct a "speedy and rigorous intensive investigation" to see if proper action was taken after receiving the calls, and if officers had reacted appropriately.
Mr Yoon's comments follow growing public demands for accountability. Authorities initially sought to portray it as an accident which could not be easily blamed on anyone.
The police earlier said they deployed more officers for this year's Halloween festivities than they did for pre-Covid parties. One congressman on Tuesday also pointed out that because there was no main organiser for the party, there had been no special requests made to the police for crowd control and safety management.
"It's impossible to ask for legal responsibility, as nobody was responsible," said Yoo Sang-bum, who is with the ruling People's Power Party, on local radio.
But President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Tuesday the incident revealed the importance of crowd management and a lack of research in South Korea on the subject.
"Rather than nitpicking about whether the event had an organiser or not, it's the people's safety that's important, and we need to come up with thorough measures," he said, while suggesting the use of drones and other digital capabilities to manage crowds in future events.
President Yoon had been facing mounting political pressure and plummeting ratings even before the incident. Police have said that on Saturday night they had to redirect some of their resources to manage huge protests against the government elsewhere in the city.
On Sunday evening, Chirag Mucchadiya, 20, and his brothers, Dharmik, 17, and Chetan, 15 went on an outing.
They told their mother Kantaben they were going to "julto pul", or hanging bridge - a historic colonial era suspension footbridge, which had reopened just a few days earlier, after months of repairs.
It was the week of Diwali festivities. Schools were off, and many families had the same idea as Chirag and his brothers.
They bought a ticket -17 rupees ($0.21) for adults and 12 for children - and walked across the 230-metre (755ft) bridge.
Nitin Kavaiya was also there, along with his wife, and his two daughters - one aged seven, and the other a seven-month old infant.
The family posed for photos, including selfies. At around 18:30 local time they got off the bridge and sat on one of the banks of the Macchu river.
"It was very crowded on the bridge. I think there might have been 400-500 people on it," says Nitin.
"I went and told the people selling tickets that they should reduce the crowds. I don't know what they did about it."
Ten minutes later, as he bent down to give his baby daughter a sip of water, he heard the sound of shouting and screaming.
The bridge had snapped, closer to the other edge of the shore, its metal walkway dangling on both sides.
"I saw people slipping into the water and they didn't surface after that," he says. "Others were clinging on to parts of the bridge trying to stay afloat. Many of us tried to help whoever we could."
At least 141 people were killed. Chirag, Chetan and Dharmik were among them.
Back at the brothers' home, one of their friends told their mother, Kantaben, that the bridge had collapsed.
"I started calling my sons, but I couldn't get through," she says. "I was very restless and began pacing up and down my house."
Her husband Rajesh rushed to the scene. Then he started doing the rounds of hospitals. At 23:00, he found the bodies of Dharmik and Chirag at the Morbi Civil Hospital.
In the darkness of the night, the police, local officials, disaster response teams and military personnel continued their search for survivors, and the bodies of the dead.
At 03:00, Chetan's body was also found. At the Mucchadiya home, a steady stream of mourners began to visit.
"We've lost all our sons, our everything," Kantaben says. "What do we have now? My husband and I are all alone."
Chirag, 20, worked in a factory making spectacles. His earnings, along with what his father Rajesh makes working as a driver, sustained the family.
"Chirag was a very nice person. He listened to everything I said. And I also tried to give him whatever he asked for," Rajesh says.
Dharmik would have been 18 on 14 December. He'd begun to look for a job. "He was very mischievous. We had a lot of fun together. Now they're all gone," his father says.
"He loved tel paratha (fried flatbread) and always wanted me to make it for him," his mother adds.
Chetan was the youngest and was in the tenth grade at school. Rajesh describes him as a "master at studies".
They proudly display passport size photos of their sons, which appear to have been taken a few years ago, when they were younger.
"Whoever is responsible for my sons' deaths should be punished," Kantaben says. "They should rot in jail for the rest of their lives. They should be given the death sentence."
Rajesh adds: "We want answers. And we want justice."
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There are many families who've lost more than one member in the collapse.
Nine people have been arrested so far, including the ticket sellers, security guards and managers of Oreva, the company which renovated the bridge.
Oreva has not responded to questions about the collapse. Some are asking if top-level managers in the company will also be investigated.
Many on the ground are also questioning the role of civic officials - asking if safety checks were done before the bridge was reopened.
"Whenever I close my eyes now I only see the visual of the collapsed bridge, and hear the voices of the people who were plunged into the river," says Nitin.
"I tore the ticket stub I had in anger. And it's not just me - the whole town is in grief and anger."
Rajesh, meanwhile, calls for a "proper investigation".
"Otherwise," he says, "people will keep dying like my children did."
Additional reporting by Aakriti Thapar and Sanjay Ganguly
As news of Lula's victory spread, a sea of red - the colours of his Workers' Party - massed on São Paulo's main street, Paulista Avenue, eager for a glimpse of the president-elect.
"Lula has returned," the crowd chanted, as they let off red smoke in celebration.
"It was a very hard campaign," Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva admitted to the crowds a few hours later. "It wasn't Lula against Bolsonaro, it was a campaign of democracy against barbarity."
Like him or loathe him, the fact that Lula, once Brazil's most popular politician, is returning to the top job is a moment in history.
"I feel free, relieved not only for the Brazilian people but for the whole planet - for the Amazon, for democracy, for human rights," said 47-year-old Viridiana Aleixo, while admitting that Brazil remained very divided. "We have to be very patient, and we have to leave the anger and hatred behind."
Twenty years ago, Lula came to power promising huge change - but a subsequent fall from grace over corruption scandals disqualified him from running in 2018. He had a stint in prison, before his charges were annulled. It has been quite a journey for Lula, but he has returned with a vengeance.
"I went through a political resurrection, because they tried to bury me alive," Lula said. "From the first of January there won't be two Brazils, we are one - we don't want to fight anymore, it's time to lay down our weapons that should never have been raised in the first place."
But uniting Brazil will be Lula's biggest challenge.
On Sunday, 24-year-old Felipe Fonte went to vote dressed in Brazil's football shirt, a colour that's become linked with Brazil's far right.
"I think [President Jair] Bolsonaro has a lot of flaws, but he's a man of God," says Felipe. "He has the right principles, and he's not the biggest thief that ever existed in Brazil. So that for me is the biggest thing."
Although Lula officially takes over in the new year, his job begins now - trying to win over people like Felipe.
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"Starting tonight, the focus must be on initiating a dialogue with those who didn't vote for the president," says Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo. "He needs to be the president for all Brazilians."
In the wake of Lula's victory, there was silence from the Bolsonaro camp. The rumour was he had gone to bed. A bad loser perhaps, but there is real concern over whether Bolsonaro and his most radical followers will accept the vote.
"I think we are facing a few potentially tense days and weeks," says Stuenkel. But while the world waits to hear whether Bolsonaro will accept the result or contest it, as he has often threatened to do, one thing is for certain: this is good news for democracy, says Stuenkel.
"Bolsonaro had over the past four years sought to undermine checks and balances and put increasing pressure on the judiciary and civil society," he says. "In that sense, particularly for other democracies around the world, his victory is unambiguously good news, particularly at a time of democratic regression."
While Lula may be the same politician, he will be leading a Brazil that's very different - and much more divided - than the one he took control of 20 years ago. And it comes at a time of deep economic hardship.
Not only that, but as Bolsonaro steps aside - one hopes - his legacy will remain in Congress and regional politics. Lula will have to contend with conservative lawmakers in whatever he wants to do.
Will Lula once again be the saviour of Brazil that many of his supporters still see him as? On Sunday evening on Avenida Paulista, they were hopeful.
"It's time to go, Bolsonaro," they chanted. Lula's back - and he's here to change Brazil.
Brazilians began a tense wait for results of their down-to-the-wire presidential runoff election after voting closed in the divisive showdown between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) cried foul on Sunday over police roadblocks it alleged were aimed at suppressing votes in his strongholds, especially the impoverished northeast.
With 80.9 percent of voting machines counted, Lula had 50.3 percent of the vote compared with 49.7 percent for Bolsonaro, the Superior Electoral Court reported on its website.
Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, won the first round on October 2, but by a much smaller margin than expected by pollsters. Sunday’s race is considered wide open.
Bolsonaro was first in line to cast his vote at a military complex in Rio de Janeiro. He sported the green-and-yellow colours of the Brazilian flag that always feature at his rallies.
“I’m expecting our victory, for the good of Brazil,” he told reporters. “God willing, Brazil will be victorious today.”
Lula voted in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the southeastern city where he got his start as a union leader, wearing a white guayabera-style shirt and surrounded by white-clad allies.
He said he was “confident in the victory of democracy” and he would seek to “restore peace” in a divided nation if elected.
Sunday’s runoff election caps a dirty and divisive campaign that has left the nation of 215 million people deeply split between supporters of conservative ex-army captain Bolsonaro, those of charismatic ex-metalworker Lula – and many others more or less equally disgusted by both.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters during a campaign rally on Saturday [Yuri Laurindo/AP]
Lula, 77, narrowly won the first-round election on October 2, and enters the finale the slight favourite with 52 percent of voter support to 48 percent for Bolsonaro, according to a final poll from the Datafolha Institute.
However, Bolsonaro, 67, performed better than expected last time around, and the result this time is anyone’s guess.
With Bolsonaro stickers on her chest, Rio de Janeiro resident Ana Maria Vieira said she was certain to vote for the president, and would never countenance picking Lula.
“I saw what Lula and his criminal gang did to this country,” she said, as she arrived to vote in Rio’s Copacabana neighbourhood, adding she thought Bolsonaro’s handling of the economy had been “fantastic”.
At the same polling station, Antonia Cordeiro, 49, said she just voted for Lula.
Bolsonaro had only worried about the concerns of the rich, at least until the final days of the campaign when he rolled out poverty-busting measures to win votes, said Cordeiro.
“We can’t continue with Bolsonaro. He hasn’t worked.”
Police roadblocks
Candidates in Brazil who top the first round tend to win the runoff. But political scientist Rodrigo Prando said this campaign is so atypical that a Bolsonaro win could not be ruled out. The president secured endorsements from governors of the three most populous states and his allies scored big wins in congressional races.
“Politically, Bolsonaro is stronger than had been imagined,” said Prando, a professor at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo. “Mathematically, Lula is in front.”
Brazil’s election chief announced the lifting of traffic police roadblocks that had “delayed” voters after the blockages led to an outcry.
“A decision was taken to end these operations to avoid the delay of voters,” top electoral judge Alexandre de Moraes told a press conference.
Leaders of the PT shared numerous videos on social media of buses carrying voters stopped at the roadblocks, mainly in the electoral stronghold of Lula, who said “what is happening in the northeast is unacceptable”.
Al Jazeera’s Monica Yanakiew, reporting from Rio de Janeiro, said heated debates were taking place among people lining up at one polling station.
Some supporters of Bolsonaro said the president should be elected as he is a defender of family and Christian values, said Yanakiew, while Lula’s voters insisted the former leader was the only one defending the poor.
“We are standing in an area which is traditionally composed by Lula voters as this is a big favela where people are poor and usually voting for Lula, but it’s interesting to see this division which shows how this is a very tight race where results are very undefined.”
The mood in Latin America’s largest country is divided after an extremely hard-fought election campaign.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly cast doubt on the electoral system and hinted he might not recognise the result if he loses. The election is also receiving international attention. As a huge carbon reservoir, the Amazon rainforest plays an important role in the fight against global climate change.
In addition, Brazil has enormous natural resources and a large agricultural economy, making it an important player in international trade.
Lula has appealed to Brazilians to elect him to help “rebuild and transform” the country after four years under Bolsonaro. He has pledged to support low-income citizens and reinstate environmental protection policies, especially in the Amazon, which has seen a surge in deforestation and increased attacks against Indigenous people in recent years.
Bolsonaro, whose mantra is “God, family, country”, has announced new support programmes for poor Brazilians while promoting economic development and promising to tackle crime and corruption. He also has stressed conservative values, including his opposition to legalised abortion and drugs while falsely warning that Lula’s return would lead to the persecution of churches.
“Lula’s campaign is about the past; that is its biggest strength and biggest weakness,” said Brian Winter, vice president for policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas.
“It is the memory of boom years of the 2000s that makes people want to vote for him. But his unwillingness or inability to articulate new ideas and bring in fresh faces has left him somewhat helpless as Bolsonaro closes the gap.”
Typically, support for Lula and his Workers’ Party has come from working-class Brazilians and rural areas. Bolsonaro has the backing of conservatives, evangelical Christians – a key voting bloc – and business interests.
Election watchers will be paying close attention to what happens in Minas Gerais, an inland state in Brazil’s southeast that is considered “a micro-sample of the Brazilian electorate”, Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman reported this week.
“If this race is as tight as most predict, every single vote will count, especially here in Minas Gerais, where no Brazilian president has ever won without winning the state,” Newman said.
