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Luiz Inácio da Silva, popularly known as Lula, has been declared the winner of the highly contested second round of the Brazilian Presidential election.
Lula won by a slight margin of 2.1 million votes over the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. The Biden Administration quickly congratulated the leftist former President on his victory.
During the tense campaign, Lula had focused especially on campaigning around the nostalgia for his two terms as the president of the country more than a decade ago. But since that time, the far right has made advances within the country after a number of corruption scandals, one of which resulted in Lula serving 580 days in prison before Brazil’s supreme court annulled his convictions.
The election has marked a period of massive polarization within Brazil. The Guardian reports that he won with the smallest margin of victory since the country returned to democracy after more than two decades of military rule, which ended in the mid-1980s.
In his victory speech, Lula promised that his administration would open a new era of relations with the United States and Europe, and with local governments inside his own country. He emphasized that his administration’s commitment will be to the people of Brazil.
“I will govern 215 million Brazilians, not only for those who voted for me, but for all of them,” Lula said. “We will have the dialogue with governors and mayors, no matter the parties, our commitment will be with everyone.”
This election is the latest in a series of wins for progressive and left candidates across the hemisphere. But unlike other governments in the region, Lula will have to confront a legislative branch that is controlled by allies of Bolsonaro.
“Looking towards the congress, there are Bolsonaro forces [who won on October 2], that was a victory for him,” Michelle Fernandez, a researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Brasilia, tells The Progressive. “That does not mean that they are an absolute majority, but Lula is going to have to negotiate with political groups that are far removed from his ideas.”
“Lula is going to have to negotiate with political groups that are far removed from his ideas.”
Lula, a former labor activist who moved into politics in the 1980s and governed the country as president from 2003 to 2010, will take office for his third term on January 1, 2023. Lula, during his first two terms,was internationally recognized for his fight against poverty, which raised tens of millions of people into the middle class through state-led social welfare programs.
He was later convicted and imprisoned for acts of corruption in April 2018, with a sentence of twelve years coming just ahead of that year’s presidential election which catapulted retired military officer Bolsonaro into the presidency. He was freed by a Supreme Court decision in November 2019 after serving nineteen months.
Lula’s re-election brings the hope of a political shift in the world’s fourth largest democracy after years of escalating authoritarianism—especially for the country’s social movements, LGBTQ+ communities, and for women.
“It was the most important election since democratization because we had four years in a row of attacks on our democratic values,” Amanda Domingos, a Brazilian political analyst and Ph.D. candidate, tells The Progressive. “The return of Lula is the return of the voice of the people.”
Bolsonaro’s term in office saw the reversal of social programs and rights—especially those of women and Indigenous peoples—and of environmental policies.
“The entire Bolsonaro government has tried to do everything possible to remove social movements in general from the political scene and has not maintained any dialogue with them or with [marginalized] sections of society,” Fernandez says.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro gave a speech where he did not concede the election, but stated Brazil would begin the transition process.
Even before taking office in 2018, Bolsonaro had become a far right icon. His firebrand discourse in support of nationalism, Christians, “traditional family values,” sexism, and his embracing of gun culture, won the former military captain prestige in the far-right international networks, leading him to be called the “tropical version of Donald Trump.” Former U.S. President Donald Trump even endorsed Bolsonaro in a video that the latter tweeted to his 9.8 million followers
“Don’t lose [to] him, don’t let that happen,” Trump said in the clip. “It would not be good for your country. I love your country, but it would not be good. So get out and vote for President Bolsonaro. He’s doing the job like few people could.”
Throughout the campaign, Bolsonaro had received support and assistance from Trump’s allies, including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. Now, Bannon and others are already suggesting that the election was fraudulent. Bolsonaro, too, had tried to cast doubt on the electoral process during the campaign, in which he suggested without evidence that the voting machines were prone to fraud—a familiar Trump tactic.
The incumbent also took up another Trump pastime: sowing division.
“When we have a President of the Republic who is constantly inciting social polarization, not [merely] inflating social polarization, [but] putting everything, all the debates in a dichotomy—‘us versus them’—that polarization remains,” Fernandez says. “Bolsonaro was given an advantage by maintaining this polarization.”
The extreme polarization meant that Brazil saw a rise in political violence in the lead up to both the first round of the election and the run-off. Some were afraid to show their support for Lula, especially as Bolsonaro supporters were known to start fights or use weapons against their political enemies.
“I did not go out to vote in red [Lula’s color] out of fear,” Domingos explained. “We were not sure about going out with stickers or with red clothes, because [of] the animosity, the polarization, and also fear that political violence has reached a level of madness.”
She adds, “This is something really ugly that Bolsonaro has left [us].”
While Lula won the election on Sunday night, the electoral process was marked by widespread accusations of voter suppression by the country’s Federal Highway Police, who have long supported Bolsonaro, and the Military Police. In reality, the Highway Police set up roadblocks on election day in the northeast region of the country, which historically has supported Lula, limiting voting access for local residents.
“Bolsonaro had and used a few tools, not to win votes but [to impede the votes],” Fernandez says. “And he still did not win.”
She adds, “It is a very important victory, one that points out the need of the people for change in this country.”
Bolsonaro is not going anywhere. His people and his allies remain in government, and his supporters still maintain animosity towards the supporters of Lula. The far right will still cast a shadow over Brazilian politics, just as Trump continues to cast his shadow over U.S. politics.
“The congressional election also shows that Bolsonaro is gone, but his movement remains,” Domingos says.