Brazil's President Lula wins fourth term after runoff election

BRASILIA — In a stunning political comeback, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been re-elected president of Brazil, but his opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, said he would not accept the results after Sunday’s chaotic runoff election.According to preliminary results, Lula secured 51.8% of the votes, defeating Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, who received more than 48.2%.Since democracy was restored in 1989, no candidate who failed to win the first round of voting has gone on to win the presidency in the second round.Lula’s victory, which ended a string of conservative wins in Latin America cheered on by US President Donald Trump, came after a judge ordered polls to remain open an additional two hours — a move requested by both campaigns after transportation delays and bad weather disrupted voting.At a news conference, Bolsonaro called for the election to be annulled, saying the decision to keep the polls open “changed the rules in the middle of the game.”Supporters of Flávio Bolsonaro gathered outside the National Museum in the capital, Brasília. One of them, Valéria Maria de Melo, 49, cried upon learning of Lula’s victory. “We know we were robbed,” she said, wearing a T-shirt plastered with Bolsonaro stickers.Bolsonaro’s party will now have to petition electoral authorities for a review of the result. Since Brazil’s return to democracy, no presidential election has been annulled. In 2014, the losing party requested an audit, but the review found no evidence of fraud, and the results were upheld.In 2022, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party similarly challenged his father’s election loss, but the court fined the party 22 million reais for failing to provide evidence to support its allegations.Leaders across Latin America have congratulated Lula on his victory, including right-wing presidents in Chile, Paraguay and Peru. But the United States has remained notably silent.Many Brazilians, as well as members of the Lula administration, had feared that Washington would try to interfere in the election. Brazilian sovereignty even became a rallying cry during Lula’s campaign. But Trump never explicitly endorsed a candidate.On Sunday night, right-wing figures in the United States, including Donald Trump Jr., began casting doubt on the election results.Lula’s comeback is remarkable. After finishing behind in the first round, few pollsters expected him to turn things around. Most assumed that voters whose preferred candidates had been eliminated would break for Flávio Bolsonaro in Sunday’s runoff. But that’s not what happened.There were about 14 million additional votes up for grabs in the runoff, including those of new voters, supporters of eliminated candidates and people who had cast blank or invalid ballots in the first round.Lula captured three out of every four of those votes, a stunning turnaround. He gained 10.4 million votes between the first and second rounds, compared with just 3.7 million for Bolsonaro.Flávio Bolsonaro also accused a Supreme Court justice who previously served as Lula’s lawyer of having “changed the rules in the middle of the game” by extending voting hours. “What happened today was not normal and it was even unacceptable,” he said.In a news conference, Bolsonaro refused to recognize Lula’s victory and said he would seek to have the election annulled. He described the court’s decision to extend the voting as a “dirty trick.”“There’s a lot that needs to be cleared up before Brazil simply accepts this foul play that took place in these elections,” he said.Lula, speaking at a hotel surrounded by his wife, his running mate and his political allies, looked relatively calm. He said the outpouring of rallies in the last week “was a demonstration that this country refuses to be anyone’s backyard.”That appeared to be a reference to the United States, which has been trying to exert new levels of control over Latin America through tariffs, sanctions, election interventions and other means.On Paulista Avenue, one of São Paulo’s main thoroughfares where Lula arrived around midnight, a massive, spontaneous celebration continued to grow. Fireworks began erupting even before the election was called, and they were still crackling overhead. Horns were blaring, adding to the deafening noise. Supporters were crying in disbelief. “I would like to thank the Brazilian people for the generosity they have shown me for a long time,” said Lula in a victory speech in São Paulo. “And, in this second round, I want to thank the generosity of the Brazilian youth, who took to the streets to defend democracy.”Lula rose to national prominence as the leader of a metalworkers’ union that organized strikes that helped bring down Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1980s. Unions and progressive Catholic activists joined forces at the time to form the Workers’ Party, which Lula has now represented in seven presidential elections.During Lula’s first two terms in office, from 2003 to 2010, Brazil’s economy boomed, and millions of Brazilians rose out of poverty. But many voters turned their backs on the party when Lula and other leaders became embroiled in corruption scandals in the 2010s. Lula himself was jailed, though his convictions were later overturned on procedural grounds.On foreign policy, Lula has worked to boost the political influence of countries in the Global South as a founding member of the BRICS group, a grouping of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, China, Russia, India and South Africa. He has argued that Brazil should maintain friendly relations with all major world powers, though his ties with China and Russia have sometimes led him to clash with Washington.