Jair Bolsonaro outperformed the polls in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, forcing a runoff while proving that the far-right wave he rode to the presidency remains a force and giving the world yet another example of surveys missing the mark.

The most-trusted opinion polls had indicated leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was far out front, and potentially even clinching a first-round victory on Sunday. One had given da Silva a 14 percentage point lead. But Bolsonaro came within just five points of da Silva, who he will face in a high-stakes runoff on Oct. 30.

Still, da Silva came close to an outright majority with 48.4% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 43.2%, according to Brazil’s electoral authority. Nine other candidates split the rest. The election will determine whether the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps Bolsonaro in office for another term.

The past four years have been marked by his incendiary speech, testing of democratic institutions, widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.