Lula Wins Historic Fourth Term as Brazil's President; Bolsonaro Rejects Result
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva secured an unprecedented fourth presidential term in Brazil's runoff election, winning more than 51 percent of the vote to Flávio Bolsonaro's 48 percent. Bolsonaro refused to concede and pledged to seek annulment of the result.
Brazil's 80-year-old incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva claimed a historic fourth presidential term, defeating Senator Flávio Bolsonaro with more than 51 percent of the vote to Bolsonaro's 48 percent, with nearly 99 percent of ballots counted when electoral authorities declared him the winner. The outcome is without precedent in modern Brazilian democracy: no candidate had ever finished second in the first round and gone on to win the presidency in the run-off. In that first round, held on October 4, Bolsonaro had captured 47.03 percent to Lula's 45.16 percent — a gap of 2.2 million votes. Higher-than-expected turnout, particularly in Lula's northeastern strongholds, helped reverse the deficit in the runoff. Controversy marred the final hours of voting after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ordered an extension of polling hours by two hours, triggering accusations of interference from both campaigns. Bolsonaro declared it "impossible to recognise the results of the election" and pledged to seek their annulment, accusing Zanin of judicial malfeasance. In his victory speech, Lula said "The election was a defeat for denialism" and "It was a defeat for lies," adding that he had been forced to "overcome interference coming from the outside." At 80, Lula is on track to beat his own record as the oldest Brazilian president to be sworn in since the country's return to democracy, and his win complicates efforts by Washington to expand right-wing influence across Latin America.
