Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva has won Brazil’s election. He beat Jair Bolsonaro with a razor-thin margin.
It was Brazil’s most polarized election in recent history, with the incumbent President Bolsonaro facing leftist former leader Lula do Silva.
After his victory, Mr. da Silva tweeted a simple photo of his hand holding the Brazilian flag with the words: “Democracy.”
It’s a remarkable return to power for Mr da Silva (77), who was imprisoned in 2018 for a corruption scandal that he committed. This prevented him from being eligible for the election of 2018.
Although Mr. da Silva was acquitted of his convictions, he still faced a difficult battle when he decided that he would run for president again. Many millions of Brazilians continue to believe that he is corrupt.
He declared his victory after the announcement.
In his inaugural speech as president-elect, he pledged that his greatest commitment to Brazil would be to ending hunger.
His victory is the first time that the current president has not been reelected since 1985, when Brazil was democratized.
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Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court count revealed that it was a close race. Mr da Silva received 50.9% of the votes, compared to Mr Bolsonaro’s 49.1%. All voting machines were counted.
In the fourth-largest democracy in the world, the election was a referendum on two very different visions of Brazil’s future.
After witnessing one of the most deadly outbreaks of COVID-19 , and extensive deforestation of the Amazon basin, Bolsonaro promised to continue a rightward trend in Brazilian politics.
Mr. da Silva promised to take more responsibility for the environment and social issues, invoking the rise of his presidency from 2003 to 2010, before corruption scandals damaged his Workers’ Party.
The vote was conducted electronically and more than 120 million Brazilians were expected.
There are also concerns that Bolsonaro could challenge election results if he loses – similar to former US President Donald Trump.
He claimed for months that the nation’s electronic vote machines were susceptible to fraud. However, he never presented any evidence.
As Mr da Silva was about to deliver a speech in a Sao Paulo hotel on Sunday night, Mr Bolsonaro hadn’t yet conceded the election.
This was the nation’s most close poll in over three decades. With 99.5% of votes counted, the gap between the candidates was just over 2 million votes. In 2014, the closest race was decided by 3.46 million votes.
On January 1, 2023, the new president, also known as Lula, will take office.
