Trump critic defeats US president’s ally in first-of-its kind election victory
Updated . First published at
Prominent Donald Trump critic Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won Brazil’s presidential election, securing a second consecutive term and defeating a key would-be ally of the US president despite trailing after the first round of voting.
The country’s electoral court confirmed on Sunday (Monday AEDT) that the veteran left-wing politician Lula had received 51.8 per cent of the vote.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won another term as Brazilian president, defeating Trump ally Flavio Bolsonaro. Getty
That is a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over far-right rival Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and, like his father, a key supporter of Donald Trump in South America.
The victory comes despite Lula having lost the first round of voting earlier in October to Bolsonaro by more than 2.2 million votes.
After losing the preliminary round, Lula reorganised his campaign, appealed to young voters, and put millions of Brazilians on the streets to defend democratic values and his legacy.
He also boosted several government initiatives, and raised fears of another Bolsonaro administration.
Jair’s supporters had attacked the country’s Supreme Court, National Congress and Presidential Palace following his loss to Lula in the 2022 elections, and the former president was sentenced to decades behind bars over the incident for planning a coup d’etat.
Lula’s victory this year is the first time since the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1985 that the first-round runner-up has won the presidency. It will give the 80-year-old his fourth term in power.
The result bucks a trend in Latin America, where increasing numbers of right-wing presidential candidates allied with Trump have been winning.
It also leaves Mexico and Brazil, Latin America’s two most populous nations, with left-leaning leaders, and positions the region’s largest economy, with a GDP of $3.7 trillion per year, to remain independent of the US, despite the pressure of increased tariffs imposed by Trump.
The electoral court’s announcement of the result ended an evening of confusion at polling places after Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ruled three minutes before the scheduled end of voting to keep polls open for two more hours, following requests by both candidates.
Supporters of Lula celebrated his victory after the electoral court announced the result. Getty Images
That decision by a Supreme Court justice may trigger legal action by Bolsonaro, who has refused to concede defeat – even though both candidates had requested extensions in different parts of the country.
Bolsonaro said the decision “was not normal, it was unacceptable” and was effectively “changing the rules of the game while the game was being played”.
“I will not give up on my Brazil, and I hope you won’t give up either,” he told his supporters.
Lula’s request came after issues with buses that provide transportation to polls in Sao Paulo and Salvador, two cities that tend to favour the incumbent.
Bolsonaro’s request was due to heavy rains in Brazil’s south, where he is favoured.
In Brasilia, volunteers who oversaw the vote count at a school debated whether they needed to stay after the announcement to extend voting, but most left 15 to 20 minutes after polls closed and they had given count information to electoral authorities.
At a polling station in Rio de Janeiro, the voting machines had already been switched off minutes after polls were set to close and couldn’t be turned back on.
The decision delayed tallying the votes by two hours. It was unclear how many polling stations stayed open after the scheduled closing time.
Bolsonaro ally Nikolas Ferreira noted that Zanin, who made the decision, is Lula's former lawyer.
– with Associated Press.
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