Brazilians began voting on Sunday morning in a polarising presidential runoff election that pits an incumbent vowing to safeguard conservative Christian values against a former president promising to return the country to a more prosperous past.

The runoff shaped up as a close contest between President Jair Bolsonaro and his political nemesis, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Both are well-known, divisive political figures who stir passion as much as loathing.

The vote will determine if the world’s fourth-largest democracy stays the same course of far-right politics or returns a leftist to the top job, and, in the latter case, whether Mr Bolsonaro will accept defeat.

Mr 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 afterward.

“God willing, Brazil will be victorious today.”

Voting stations in the capital, Brasilia, were already crowded by morning and, at one of them, retired public servant Luiz Carlos Gomes said he would vote for Mr da Silva.

“He’s the best for the poor, especially in the countryside,” said Mr Gomes, 65, who hails from Maranhao state in the poor northeast region.

“We were always starving before him.”