Leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, October 25, the country’s electoral authority said, defeating right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in a runoff to secure a fourth non-consecutive term.
Lula won 51.8% of the vote against 48.2% for Bolsonaro, electoral authorities said, with over 99% of votes counted, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The victory is a comeback from the first round, when Bolsonaro led Lula with 47% of ballots cast against Lula’s 45%. Lula became the first presidential candidate in Brazil’s modern democratic history to lose the first round of voting but win the runoff, the Journal reported.
A victory speech — and a refusal to concede
In a victory speech, Lula thanked the “generosity of Brazilian people,” including young people who “went to the streets to defend Brazilian democracy,” the BBC reported.
Supporters celebrated across the country, including at the São Paulo hotel where Lula watched the count with First Lady Rosângela da Silva, allies and friends.
Bolsonaro, however, said on Sunday that he would not concede defeat and would seek the annulment of the runoff election. He called a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extending voting for two hours “unacceptable.” The extension came amid bad weather and poor transportation service on Sunday.
What the campaign was fought over
Cost-of-living concerns were widespread in the campaign. Annual inflation stood at 4.58% in the 12 months through September, above the central bank’s 3% target, pushing prices — including for food — higher, Reuters reported. Crime was another major concern for voters.
Lula has pledged measures to allow for steady cuts in borrowing costs and to keep inflation under control, while Bolsonaro campaigned on reducing and stabilizing public debt, bringing interest rates closer to international levels and steering inflation toward the central bank’s target, Reuters reported.
Lula’s next term begins on January 5, 2027. It will likely be the last of a political career that began in the 1970s as a union leader, before he helped found the Workers’ Party and won his first presidential election in 2002. He was reelected in 2006, succeeded by Dilma Rousseff in 2010, and narrowly defeated Jair Bolsonaro — Flávio Bolsonaro’s father — in 2022.
This result is an update to Zark News’s earlier Sunday story on the runoff vote itself; the vote outcome and Bolsonaro’s refusal to concede are the new developments.
Sources: Reuters; The Wall Street Journal; New York Post (victory speech via BBC)
