Brazil elections: Lula secures fourth term after dramatic comeback

Brazil's seasoned left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has been re-elected following a bitterly clashed campaign, beating his right-wing competitor Flávio Bolsonaro, who has not conceded.

With all the votes counted, Lula had 51.79% of the votes, compared Bolsonaro's 48.21%, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court announced.

But Bolsonaro has refused to acknowledge the result, citing the expansion of polling by two hours as "inexplicable" - equal although his run team, as fine as that of his rival, had requested that polling stations be kept open longer.

He told his supporters in Brasilia that he would search the annulment of the election.

However, this has not stopped Lula and his supporters from celebrating what they depict as a "historic victory" and an astonishment turn-around.

It is Lula's fourth win in a presidential election, having served two conditions as chairman from January 2003 to December 2010, and again from January 2023.

But the highway to his win in Sunday's run-off was not a gentle one.

Bolsonaro had beaten Lula in the archetypal circular on 4 October and many had not idea it imaginable for him to rotate the outcome about in fair three weeks.

He has additionally bucked a wider trend in Latin America, anywhere voters have punished incumbents and turned to the right. Across the region, ample countries specified as Argentina, Chile and Colombia all now have traditional leaders at their helm.

Lula's run sprang rear to existence following his first-round defeat driven by street demonstrations and a enormous social media push.

The erstwhile metalworker, who has been the foremost fig on Brazil's remaining since he archetypal ran for chairman in 1989, nevertheless faces the most challenging governmental landscape since archetypal taking agency in 2003.

His new term, set to commencement on 5 January 2027, volition commencement amid important constraints at residence and abroad, including animosity from US President Donald Trump.

While Trump did not endorse Lula's rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, immediately – item he did alongside the right-wing candidates who went on to win presidential elections held in Colombia and Honduras – there is small doubt his administration would have preferred to see a traditional at the helm of this nation of 213 myriad people.

The White House regards Latin America as an area of US power alongside the Trump administration eager to have leaders in power who assistance its policies, including on defence, safety and trade.

It is additionally eager to decrease China's power in the Western Hemisphere.

Brazil, which is oil-rich and holds the world's second-largest reserves of rare earth minerals, is the lone big nation in South America not governed by a right-wing leader, alongside Lula mostly seen as China-friendly.

Flávio Bolsonaro had promised to align Brazil additional closely alongside Washington during Lula had warned the US not to interfere in the ballot and insisted that Brazil would "never fit into anyone's backyard".

But during there may be frustration in the White House, Lula's triumph volition be welcomed by environmentalists who had feared that a win by Bolsonaro would have stated Brazil's influential agribusiness and mining sectors additional power.

They had pointed to document levels of deforestation and timber fires in the Amazon during the presidency of his father, Jair, arguing that under the younger Bolsonaro laxer ecological policies could again guide to demolition in this key ecosystem.

While Lula's supporters are ecstatic concerning his victory, the outcome shows that the nation remains deeply divided, alongside additional than 48% of voters choosing Bolsonaro.

In supplement to the difficulty of uniting specified a deeply polarised country, Lula volition have to govern alongside the most right-wing Congress in Brazil's delegate era.

Bolsonaro's Liberal Party (PL) was the gathering that made the biggest gains in the election.

And yet, Lula's Workers' Party managed to organise huge rallies onward of the run-off, showing the powerful grassroots assistance it commands.

Before the election, Lula had described the study as "a parting of the waters for Brazil".

He promised to extend the gap between Brazil's opposing governmental poles alongside "a new way of governing", adding in a WhatsApp livestream before the ballot that "this nation volition never be the identical again".

While he provided small item as to what the new way of governing would entail, he insisted he would "remain resolute in the combat for a additional fair country, alongside opportunities for all and policies directed at the needs of the population".

With a mostly antagonistic Congress, this combat fair may demonstrate much harder for the seasoned chief - who volition be 85 by the end of his fourth term - than in his three former conditions in office.