Brazil: Lula’s historic victory – Trump-style Bolsonaro defeated

Inácio Lula da Silva has triumphed in the Brazilian elections. After an epic comeback, the last icon of the global left has won the run-off against the Trump-style candidate Flavio Bolsonaro , who meanwhile has announced he will appeal, confirming her position as President of Brazil for the fourth time. In the end, he secured 51.74 per cent of the vote, compared with 48.2 per cent for the protégé of the former coup leader, a clear margin, well above that predicted on the eve of the election.

A triumph that also sends a strong message to the world: just just a few days before the Midterm elections, his victory halts the hitherto unstoppable advance of the Trumpian right in Latin America. But Lula, who has admitted to never having owned a smartphone, has also defeated Meta, which has been accused by many of having tried in vain to curb the spread of its content on social media. This is also good news for the LGBTQ+ community, for defenders of minority rights, of indigenous peoples, and of the most vulnerable who depend on public social policies. And it is also good news for environmental policies aimed at protecting the Amazon, the lungs of the world.

“Let’s change course. We have made history, in the streets and at the ballot box, with the people at the heart of a journey that still has a long way to go. Democracy has prevailed, hope has been strengthened, and Brazil is moving forward. This victory is ours. And together we will achieve much more,” said Lula, sending a message to US President Donald Trump, who has remained silent in the meantime: “This country will not accept being anyone’s back garden,” he said, alluding to US interests in South America.

His victory is historic not least because of the way it came about: never before in the history of Brazilian politics has a candidate who was defeated in the first round managed to overturn the result in the second round. Nor has any candidate ever won so many votes, over 64 million. Behind the victory of this ‘Highlander’ of global progressivism lies, without doubt, the surge in voter turnout: abstention fell by two percentage points, a sign that even those who stayed at home in the first round turned out to vote. But this time, they may have gone to the polls driven by the fear of another Bolsonaro in the presidency. And thanks to them, the world’s most Catholic country will not, for the first time, be led by an Evangelical.

In three weeks, thanks to a grassroots mobilisation both on the streets and online – the contribution of his online ‘army’ was crucial – Lula managed to turn around a situation that had seemed utterly hopeless: on the night of the first round, he was trailing by around two million votes behind his opponent, confident of victory partly because he was convinced he would secure the nine million votes of the excluded candidates, all from the centre-right. But once again, the elderly leader (who will turn 81 in a few days’ time), just as he did four years ago against Jair, has defeated another Bolsonaro.