Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 26 (ANI) — Leftist leader and former factory worker Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 80, won reelection as Brazil’s president on Sunday, defeating Flávio Bolsonaro in a heated runoff after the candidates were tied during the first round of voting.
According to Brazilian media reports and projections by Datafolha, with 99.77% of the votes counted, the incumbent president had secured 51.76% of the valid votes in the second round, compared with 48.24% for Bolsonaro.
The victory extends Lula’s record as Brazil’s second-longest-serving president, behind Getúlio Vargas. By the end of his latest term, Lula will have spent 16 years in power, a record in Brazil’s democratic history.
The victory follows a campaign dominated by concerns about the cost of living, crime and corruption. CNN reported that this was also the first time since the return of direct presidential elections in 1989 that a candidate had won the presidency after finishing second in the first round.
Lula, who first governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, faced a difficult reelection battle amid concerns about living costs and public safety. Bolsonaro made a tough-on-crime approach the cornerstone of his campaign and pledged to lower food prices.
Both presidential candidates faced corruption allegations involving family members and allies. Lula spent more than a year in prison after being convicted of corruption, but the convictions were eventually annulled.
The results of Sunday’s runoff followed a heated election day, with voting extended by two hours after last-minute appeals from both candidates to electoral authorities.
According to CNN, Lula’s victory will have repercussions beyond Brazil, keeping Latin America’s largest country on a more independent foreign policy path. Lula has emphasized Brazil’s sovereignty and closer ties with the Global South and China amid tensions with the Trump administration.
Lula began his political career in the 1970s as a union leader. He later helped found the Workers’ Party, which he represented as a presidential candidate three times before winning the election in 2002. He was reelected four years later and succeeded by one of his cabinet ministers, Dilma Rousseff, in 2010. Rousseff was reelected in 2014. (ANI)
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