Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the left-wing former leader of Brazil, has emerged as the winner in the country’s momentous election, defeating the hard-right president Jair Bolsonaro in one of the most stunning comebacks in international politics.
Lula’s victory after a toxic contest was, however, by a narrow margin – Lula had won 50.8 per cent of votes to Mr Bolsonaro’s 49.2 per cent with 99.1 per cent counted – raising the prospect of a possible challenge by the incumbent and his supporters taking to the streets in protests which many fear could turn violent.
Mr Bolsnarao, a former army captain, had claimed even before Sunday’s vote that the election may be “stolen” from him. This week his son Flavio, a Brazilian senator, echoed Donald Trump’s claims about the 2020 US election by declaring his father will be the “victim of the largest electoral fraud ever seen”.
Lula, 77, completed his astonishing comeback five years after he was jailed for money laundering following an extensive investigation into public corruption. He was sentenced to nine and half years in prison in 2017 but in a series of judgments from 2019 to 2021 the Supreme Court quashed the conviction, released him from prison and ruled that the judge had showed bias at his trial and his court did not have jurisdiction in the case.
In a speech following his victory on Sunday night, Lula promised to unite a divided country and invited international cooperation to preserve the Amazon rainforest. He said he will seek fair global trade rather than trade deals that “condemn our country to be an eternal exporter of raw materials.”
Lula’s supporters began to gather in the streets of Sao Paulo, where both the presidential campaigns were based, with loud cheers, bursts of firecrackers and hooting car horns around two hours after the polls closed at 5pm, as reports began to appear that their man was taking a decisive lead in the popular vote in a country which spans four time zones.
There was relief, amid euphoria, from Lula’s team, who had been gravely disappointed in him failing to secure the 50 per cent of votes needed to win in the first round of the presidential race on 2 October, despite opinion polls giving him a clear lead.
Holding up a poster of Lula at a gathering in Sao Paolo’s Paulista Avenue, 78-year-old Maria Dos Santos was in tears. “I stopped myself from hoping too much, I did not want to be disappointed after what happened in the first round,” she said. “But I could not face another four years of Bolsanaro. I am old and I am glad I’ve lived long enough to see that man go. He was destroying our country.”
Diego Valdez paused between bursts of blowing a trumpet to say: “Bolsonaro made our country a laughing stock around the world. He wanted to be a dictator, he wanted to crush his opponents. He and his family lied to people through the social media. He spread poison.”
Manuel Awaete, from one of the country’s indigenous communities, had a special cause, he said, to celebrate. The Amazon, the home of his people, had experienced widespread depredation during Bolsanaro’s tenure.
Data from the Brazilian space research agency, Inpe, revealed that in just the last 12 months deforestation in the Amazon increased by 64 per cent, affecting an area larger than New York City. This follows the loss of 8.4 million acres, an area larger than Belgium, in the first two years of the current administration.
“Bolsonaro once said that he wished the Brazilian military did to us what the US cavalry did to the American Indians. So he was no friend to us”, said Mr Awaete. “Our problems are not over, but this is a great day for us.”
Many of those who had voted for Lula and fervently wished for his victory were, however, concerned about the aftermath.
“Of course I am worried, very worried” said Wilson, a maintenance engineer. “I am 55-years old and I have never seen our country so polarised, so divided. There is a genuine prospect that Bolsonaro will call his people out on to the street. He has a lot of violent supporters. I have not put up any posters for Lula at my home or in my car for safety reasons.
“I know some people who support Bolsonaro and it is impossible to debate matters with them rationally. They think that the warnings about what is happening to the Amazon is just a communist conspiracy; that’s the level we are talking about.”
Wilson’s daughter Marina, a 24-year old student at Sao Paulo University, added: “I study biology and of course we should all be worried by what’s happening to the Amazon. But people are being fed all kinds of conspiracy theories. It is an organised denial of truth.”
Marina hoped the violence feared by her father and others will not take place. But she planned to stay at home after the results come out: “We hope that people will be sensible, that any disputes will be settled through the courts. But one can’t be certain and I won’t be going out for the time being.”
Joe Biden was among the first world leaders to congratulate Lula, highlighting Brazil’s “free, fair, and credible elections”.
“I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead,” he said.
