Augusto Cury Finishes Third and Declines to Back Either Runoff Candidate

Overview

• Sunday's near-final count showed Cury finished third with about 3.43 million votes, roughly 2.9 percent of the total, behind Flávio Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
• After the first-round result he publicly declined to support either runoff candidate and barred others from speaking for him on endorsements.
• Cury said he will continue to promote the 200-page, 18-project platform he registered with the Electoral Justice, which emphasizes emotional health, full-time schools, inclusion and support for entrepreneurs.
• He told reporters his campaign struggled to reach voters on social media, called for an international audit of algorithmic effects on outreach, and at the same time affirmed he respects the vote count and electronic voting machines.
• The outcome caps an outsider bid by a 67-year-old psychiatrist and best-selling author that briefly rose in polls but failed to convert momentum into sustained votes, a dynamic that leaves his policy proposals to compete for attention outside the formal party duopoly.