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Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has done it again: 20 years after winning Brazil’s presidency for the first time, the leftist beat the incumbent in an extremely tight election on Sunday Bolsonaro, which marked a sea change in the country after four years of far-right politics.
In the runoff ballot, with more than 99 percent of the votes counted, with Da Silva winning 50.9 percent and Bolsonaro 49.1 percent, electoral authorities said Da Silva’s victory was mathematically certain.
It’s a stunning reversal for Da Silva, 77, who was jailed in 2018 over a corruption scandal that sidelined him in the 2018 election, leaving Bol, a defender of conservative social values. Sonaro takes the stage.
Da Silva has pledged to overtake his leftist Workers’ Party in power. He hopes to bring in centrists, even some on the right who voted for him for the first time, and restore the country’s more prosperous past. However, he faces headwinds in a society with slowing economic growth and political polarization. inflation is soaring.
His victory marked the first time a sitting president has failed to win re-election since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985. Highly polarized elections in Latin America’s largest economy continue a recent wave of leftist victories in the region, including Chile, Colombia and Argentina.
Da Silva’s inauguration is scheduled for January 1. He last served as president from 2003 to 2010.
It was the closest election the country has come to in more than three decades. Just over 2 million votes were cast between the two candidates, with a tally of 99.5 percent. The last closest match was in 2014, when it was decided by a margin of 3.46 million votes.
Independent political analyst Thomas Trauman compared the result to U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, saying da Silva was inheriting a deeply divided country.
“The big challenge for Lula will be to appease the country,” he said. “Not only are people polarized on political issues, but they also have different values, identities and perspectives. More importantly, they don’t care what the other’s values, identities and perspectives are.”
Bolsonaro had been leading in the first half, and as soon as Da Silva passed him, the cars on the streets of central Sao Paulo began to honk their horns. People on the streets of Rio’s Ipanema neighborhood can be heard shouting: “It’s changed!”
Da Silva’s headquarters at São Paulo’s downtown hotel erupted only after the final results were announced, underscoring the match’s signature tension.
“Four years of waiting,” said Gabriela Soto, one of the few supporters who were allowed in because of safety.
Outside Bolsonaro’s home in Rio de Janeiro, his support base went to zero, and a woman in the truck prayed through a loudspeaker, then sang excitedly in an attempt to generate some energy. But supporters wearing green and yellow flags barely responded. When the national anthem was played, many people were full of energy and sang loudly with their hands over their hearts.
Most opinion polls leading up to the election put da Silva, popularly known as Lula, although political analysts believe the race has become more intense in recent weeks.
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