On Sunday, October 30, Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva achieved a historic victory over the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. In the closest race since the restoration of Brazilian democracy in the 1980s, Bolsonaro became the first incumbent to ever lose re-election. The election divided Brazil between the defense of democracy and a return to civil politics on one side, and authoritarianism and reactionary politics on the other. Lula’s victory, with 50.9 percent of the vote versus Bolsonaro’s 49.1 percent, sparked celebrations on Brazil’s largest avenues as the popular cry rang out for an end to the social crisis the country has been enduring. Brazilian journalist Fernando Gabeira, who once fought as a guerrilla fighter against the military dictatorship, called the election “a victory for Brazil, and a victory for humanity. We can now breathe again”.
Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a longtime rival of Lula, sent him a message of congratulations proclaiming that “democracy has won”.
Bolsonaro’s second-round vote total was slightly higher than it had been in 2018: 58.2 million compared with 57.7 four years ago. But Lula achieved a big increase in the vote for his Workers’ Party (PT) colleague Fernando Haddad, Bolsonaro’s main opponent in 2018, with support for the PT-endorsed candidate rising from 47 million votes in 2018 to 60 million votes this time. Lula campaigned on a message of democracy and pragmatism, defending political unity, and valorisation of human and civil rights. For his vice-presidential candidate, Lula picked Geraldo Alckmin, another former rival, who was his presidential opponent in 2006. Lula’s diverse coalition, encompassing figures that ranged from socialists to neoliberals, condemned Bolsonaro’s disregard for the Brazilian people, the economy, and the environment, promising a return to stability and progress in opposition to Bolsonaro’s four years of chaos. It is the third presidential victory in Lula’s career, after two consecutive terms he served between 2002 and 2008, cementing his position as the most popular living politician in Brazil.
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However, Lula’s election is a bittersweet moment, as the legislative and gubernatorial elections of the last month were in large part won by conservative or far-right candidates who backed Bolsonaro. Lula will face unprecedented hostility as President, as his political opponents will control Brazil’s Congress as well as its biggest and richest states. The new era of disinformation and polarisation has tested Brazil’s electoral safeguards to their very limits. The month of October, culminating in Sunday’s election, was a battleground of disinformation, political extremism, and even open violence. To defeat Bolsonaro, Lula moved increasingly toward the center to broaden his appeal. His Vice President, Geraldo Alckmin, is an ideological opponent of the Left, along with many of his other allies. Nevertheless, the Congress that the new President will be presiding over is far more conservative and hostile than the one he cooperated with during the 2000s. Lula faces several daunting challenges, such as reversing the damage done to the Amazon, rebuilding the social and environmental agencies that Bolsonaro gutted, and combating the culture of hate and casual prejudice that his predecessor cultivated. But whatever trials might lie ahead, his victory has given democracy and civil discourse a new chance in a country that desperately needed hope.
