Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has achieved a political comeback that has eluded Brazilian presidential candidates for nearly 40 years.
On Sunday, the 80-year-old leftist president overcame a first-round defeat to right-wing Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, son of jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro, to win a record fourth non-consecutive term.
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Mr. Lula received over 51% of the vote, while Mr. Bolsonaro received 48%. About 98.76 percent of the ballots had been counted by the time election officials declared him the winner.
Sunday’s outcome was far from certain and the Brazilian remained nervous until the end. Bolsonaro and Lula were virtually tied in pre-election polls.
The last-minute decision to extend voting hours prompted accusations of election interference and questions about whether the results could face legal challenges.
Sen. Bolsonaro has already vowed to invalidate the vote, claiming that the extended voting hours caused confusion among voters.
Here are five key points.
Lula makes history with unprecedented re-election
Just three weeks ago, Lula seemed troubled.
Mr. Bolsonaro defeated the incumbent in the first round of voting on October 4, winning 47.03% of the vote to Mr. Lula’s 45.16%, surprising many involved. The difference was 2.2 million votes.
But Mr. Lula spent the next three weeks trying to bring back voters who stayed home in the first round, while making a renewed pitch to people concerned about the cost of living and the future of his signature social programs.
Opinion polls on the final day of the campaign showed both candidates virtually tied.
Bolsonaro briefly took the lead when votes were counted Sunday evening. But Lula eventually moved forward as results started coming in from the northeast, Reuters reported.
The northeast has long been a strong source of support for Mr. Lula and his Workers’ Party.
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has a large support base not only in the Midwest but also in the South and Southeast.
For Lula, the victory marks an unprecedented fourth term as president. For Bolsonaro, Sunday marks a defeat in his efforts to return his family to the presidency.
No other candidate in modern Brazilian history has finished second in the first round of presidential voting and won in the run-off.
At 80 years old, Lula is on pace to break his own record as the oldest Brazilian president to be sworn in since the country’s return to democracy.
Brazil’s last-minute vote extension sparks chaos
As Brazil’s presidential election run-off draws to a close on Sunday, both sides have called for an extension of the vote.
Lula’s campaign accused local authorities of intentionally cutting public transport services in several cities, making it difficult for low-income voters to get to the polls.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro’s campaign called for more time for voters in areas affected by heavy rains and flooding.
In the state of Minas Gerais, the local electoral court reported that 349 polling stations experienced power outages, although voting machines continued to run on backup batteries, local media reported.
Voting was originally scheduled to end at 5pm Brasilia time (20:00 GMT).
However, in the face of petitions from both sides for an extension, Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ordered polling stations to remain open for an additional two hours until 7pm (10pm local time).
However, the decision comes after some stations have already been closed and electronic voting machines have been suspended.
Zanin later clarified that polling stations that were already closed would remain closed. Only those still open were able to continue accepting voters until 7 p.m.
The result was confusion over who could still vote, with some Brazilians refusing to vote despite the extension.
In a short speech after the election, Bolsonaro cited these issues as reasons to invalidate the vote. He also accused Zanin of judicial misconduct.
“He changes the rules of the game in the middle of the match,” Bolsonaro said.
Allegations of election interference raise the possibility of legal challenges
Brazil’s federal police are investigating suspected election-related transportation disruptions in five states.
In Salvador, a court ordered the arrest of the city’s transportation chief for allegedly ordering a reduction in bus service. Lula’s camp pointed to these incidents as evidence of election interference.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro raised similar allegations against Zanin, pointing to Lula’s career as a private lawyer. Lula appointed Zanin to the Supreme Court in 2023.
“It is impossible to recognize the election results,” Bolsonaro told supporters, calling the situation “unacceptable.”
He is likely to launch a court challenge to overturn his defeat. Some figures on the global right have already expressed support.
US President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., expressed outrage at the decision to extend voting hours.
Trump Jr. posted on social media: “If Brazil’s conservative government did something like this, the entire American mainstream media would lose their minds, but they’re just choosing to stay silent. It’s all for a good cause.”
The Trump administration has backed the Bolsonaro family and echoed former President Jair Bolsonaro’s claims that he was the subject of a political “witch hunt” in court.
Flavio Bolsonaro has called for reform of Brazil’s courts after his father’s legal troubles. Earlier this month, Bolsonaro said if elected, he would seek to amend Brazil’s constitution with the aim of “re-democratizing” Brazil.
Al Jazeera correspondent Monica Janakiu suggested tensions between Brazil’s right wing and the court system are likely to flare up again following Sunday’s election results.
Yanakiw pointed to rifts within the Supreme Court, saying, “The judicial system itself is very divided.” “It’s going to take a lot of political negotiations.”
High turnout may have helped Lula
Andrei Roman, head of polling firm Atlas Intel, said higher-than-expected turnout may have contributed to Lula’s victory, and cited a decline in abstentions as one of the factors contributing to the president’s victory.
Despite voting being compulsory for most adults, an estimated 33.4 million Brazilians stayed home during the first round of voting on October 4. This amounted to approximately 21% of voters and was the highest abstention rate in a general election since 1998.
The question now is how much of a difference these voters made. The difference in votes between candidates in the first round was more than 2.2 million votes, so even a relatively small change in turnout could have been a significant factor in the runoff.
Final turnout figures, especially in each candidate’s home region, may help explain how Lula managed to turn the race around.
Lula also made his final pitch in the final weeks of the campaign, aiming to galvanize his working-class base. That included a promise to pursue free public transport on weekends.
Lula’s victory complicates Trump’s ambitions in Latin America
Lula’s victory comes amid a spate of right-wing electoral victories across Latin America, where Trump has sought to expand Washington’s influence.
The Bolsonaro family has long enjoyed President Trump’s support. Reuters reported on Saturday that State Department officials were pushing for sanctions against Brazil as part of an effort to weaken Lula and return the Bolsonaro family to power.
Asked on Sunday who he wanted to win, Trump did not name a candidate.
“I don’t want to get into that, but we are watching it closely,” he told reporters.
Although Trump has been vocal about his support for other right-wing candidates in Latin America, he has been relatively cautious about the Brazilian election, leading critics to speculate that this may have been intentional.
Bolsonaro has pledged closer ties with the United States, while Lula has made defending Brazil’s sovereignty and resisting foreign interference a central theme of his campaign.
He has often pointed to President Trump’s aggressive tariff campaign and public comments about the Jair Bolsonaro trial as evidence of foreign interference. Lula’s campaign has also clashed with US-based social media companies, with President Trump accusing them of government censorship.
In his victory speech, Lula said he needed to “overcome external interference” in seeking a fourth term.
“The election was a defeat for the naysayers,” Lula said Sunday night. “It was a fake loss.”
He ended his speech by praising his “army” of supporters.
“It is highly doubtful whether Russia, China or the United States have an army in this country as victorious as the democratic army,” Lula thanked voters.
