Brazil election: Lula defeats Bolsonaro to complete stunning comeback as president
Ex-president vows to unite divided country and preserve Amazon rainforest after defeating far-right leader following bitter campaign
Luiz InĆ”cio Lula da Silva, the left-wing former leader of Brazil, has emerged as the winner in the countryās momentous election, defeating the hard-right president Jair Bolsonaro in one of the most stunning comebacks in international politics.
Lulaās victory after a toxic contest was, however, by a narrow margin ā Lula had won 50.8 per cent of votes to Mr Bolsonaroās 49.2 per cent with 99.1 per cent counted ā 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. Lulaās inauguration is scheduled to take place on 1 January. He last served as president from 2003 to 2010.
Mr Bolsonaro, a former army captain, had claimed even before Sundayās vote that the election may be āstolenā from him. This week his son Flavio, a Brazilian senator, echoed Donald Trumpās claims about the 2020 US election by declaring his father will be the āvictim of the largest electoral fraud ever seenā.
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 a 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 ācondemn our country to be an eternal exporter of raw materialsā.
Lulaās 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 1700 local time [2000 GMT], 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 Lulaās 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 Paoloās Paulista Avenue, 78-year-old Maria Dos Santos was in tears. āI stopped myself from hoping too much, I did not want to be disappointed after what happened in the first round,ā she said. āBut I could not face another four years of Bolsonaro. I am old and I am glad Iāve lived long enough to see that man go. He was destroying our country.ā
Diego Valdez paused between bursts of blowing a trumpet to say: āBolsonaro 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.ā
Manuel Awaete, from one of the countryās indigenous communities, had a special cause, he said, to celebrate. The Amazon, the home of his people, had experienced widespread depredation during Bolsonaroās 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.
āBolsonaro 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 usā, said Mr Awaete. āOur problems are not over, but this is a great day for us.ā
Many of those who had voted for Lula and fervently wished for his victory were, however, concerned about the aftermath.
āOf course I am worried, very worried,ā said Wilson, a maintenance engineer. āI 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 onto 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.
āI 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; thatās the level we are talking about.ā
Wilsonās daughter Marina, a 24-year old student at Sao Paulo University, added: āI study biology and of course we should all be worried by whatās happening to the Amazon. But people are being fed all kinds of conspiracy theories. It is an organised denial of truth.ā

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: āWe hope that people will be sensible, that any disputes will be settled through the courts. But one canāt be certain and I wonāt be going out for the time being.ā
Joe Biden was among the first world leaders to congratulate Lula, highlighting Brazilās āfree, fair, and credible electionsā.
āI look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead,ā he said.
French president EmmanuelĀ MacronĀ also congratulated Lula for his win, adding in a Twitter post that the two leaders would ārenew ties of friendship between their countriesā.
Mr Bidenās former US presidential rival, Donald Trump, had sought to intervene in the Brazilian vote in the final days of the campaign by urging people not to back Lula, who he described as a āa radical left lunatic who will quickly destroy your countryā.
Mr Bolsonaro, who is known as the āTrump of the Tropicsā established warm relations with the former US president, who previously stated ther pair had ābecome great friendsā.
There is apprehension that Mr Bolsanaroās followers, many of them heavily armed thanks in part to his easing of gun laws, would show similar aggression to Trumpās followers in the Capitol riot in the wake of his election defrat.
Joao Nunez, a Bolsonaro supporter who had said he was confident that the president would win re-election, said after the result: āWe need to examine how this could have happened. We need to examine and then do what needs to be done. We need some answers, I just feel angry at present.ā
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