Brazil's Veteran Leftist Lula Wins Presidential Polls, Bolsonaro Defeated

Brazil's veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president Sunday by a hair's breadth, beating his far-right rival in a down-to-the-wire poll that split the country in two, election...

Veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a new term as Brazil's president on Sunday, capping a notable political comeback to defeat far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a divisive run-off.

All eyes will now focus on Bolsonaro and his supporters' reaction to the official result, after months of claiming -

without evidence -

That Brazil's e-voting system suffers from fraud and that the courts, media and other institutions have conspired against his far-right movement.

The victory marked a stunning turnaround for former metal worker Lula: he left his post in 2010 as the most popular president in Brazilian history,

He fell to disgrace when he was imprisoned for 18 months on controversial corruption charges, which have since been rescinded, and is now back for an unprecedented third term at age 77.

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro, a staunch hard-line conservative who has been dubbed "tropical Trump," became the first incumbent president not to win the title.

Elections since Brazil returned to democracy at the end of the 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

Election officials announced the election of Lula, who received 51 percent of the vote versus Bolsonaro's 49 percent with more than 99 percent of the polls.

- restore peace -

Decorated in red for Lula's Workers' Party (PT),

Supporters of the celebration exploded in cities across the country, setting off colorful fireworks in Rio de Janeiro and exploding to huge cheers in Sao Paulo.

A smiling Lula welcomed cheering supporters into Sao Paulo, the economic capital, and tweeted one word: "Democracy," alongside an image of the Brazilian flag.

in tears,

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's supporters in the green and yellow of the flag - adopted by the former army chief - got on their knees to pray for the opposite, and gathered outside the seat of government in the capital, Brasilia.

Bolsonaro climbed to victory four years ago on a flurry of fury with politics as usual,

But he has been heavily criticized for his disastrous handling of the Covid pandemic -

19, which has left more than 680,000 people dead in Brazil, as well as a weak economy, a polarizing style, and attacks on democratic institutions.

Many fear Brazil's reworking of the Capitol riots that rocked the United States after losing the 2020 election to Bolsonaro's political model,

Donald Trump.

Regardless of Bolsonaro's reaction, Lula will face major challenges since his inauguration day on January 1st.

Bolsonaro's far-right allies scored major victories in legislative and governor elections in the first round of elections on October 2, and they will be the biggest force in Congress.

Lula said after the vote in São Bernardo do Campo, the southeastern city in which he emerged as a union leader, that he would work to heal the wounds left by the polarization campaign.

"One of the dreams that made me become a candidate in this election is to restore peace among Brazilians," he told reporters.

They wear a white shirt and are surrounded by allies dressed in white.

The campaign has descended into an orgy of defamation, offensive ads and misinformation, particularly on the all-important battlefield of social media.

- Huge challenges -

The slime left little room for actual issues, such as the economy,

Rampant destruction of the Amazon rainforest and 33 million Brazilians live in starvation.

Lula inherits a deeply divided country, with an extremely difficult global economic situation unlike the commodity "supercycle" that allowed him to lead Latin America's largest economy through a watershed boom in the 2000s.

Lula's win is "one of the biggest comebacks in modern political history," tweeted Brian Winter, Americas Quarterly editor-in-chief.

Winter told AFP that the charismatic but distorted left-wing icon would also have "weak government".

The result, he said, heralded "an attempt to turn back the clock to the 2000s".

“The problem is that you can't repeat the past. Brazil has a very strong conservative movement that is rising.

Lula will be under the microscope from day one, facing a hostile Congress."

None of that mattered at the moment to Lula's jubilant supporters.

“Brazil is starting to stand upright again after four years of darkness.

"We were going through a lot of problems, a lot of fear," Larissa Meneses, a 34-year-old real estate developer, told AFP at a festive victory ceremony in Sao Paulo.

BY
ProBuzzFeed