Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has won the presidential election on Sunday and became the 39th president of Brazil.
It was a closely contested election in which Lula gained narrow victory over President Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election. As per the calculations of the Supreme Electoral Court of the country, Lula received 50.9 per cent of votes, whereas incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro gained 49.1 per cent votes.
The end of a far-right regime
The incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a far-right politician, whereas Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is a leftist democrat and former president who secured a comeback while ending most right-wing government in decades.
The vote was a disapproval of Bolsonaro’s fiery far-right appeal, who rose to the ranks in Congress and brought forth his national conservatism but lost his appeal as Brazil witnessed one of the highest death tolls from the coronavirus pandemic.
Lula returns in a third-term
The 77-year-old former president will take the presidential post for the third time, formerly served from 2003 to 2010. His inauguration is set to take place on January 1.
In his winning speech, Lula emphasized on uniting a divided country and make sure that Brazilians “put down arms that never should have been taken up” and simultaneously calling international cooperation to protect the Amazon rainforest and make global trade more transparent.
In his speech, Lula said, “I will govern for 215 million Brazilians, and not just for those who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation.”
A former union leader, Lula had experienced unusual political turmoil due to his controversy regarding Car Wash scandal that exposed the corruption involved in contracts allocation by a state-owned petroleum company, Petrobras.
As a result of his conviction in the case, Lula was disqualified from running in the 2018 presidential election. The country’s Supreme Court, however, overturned the judgment in 2021, finding that the 2018 ruling was biased against the 77-year-old head of state.
US President Joe Biden congratulated Lula for winning “free, fair and credible elections,” adding compliments from European and Latin American leaders.
What led to Bolsonaro’s defeat?
In 2021, 67-year-old Bolsonaro openly discussed the rejection to embrace the results of the vote.
The criticism Jair Bolsonaro received for his careless handling of Covid by refusing to acknowledge the impending risk the virus was capable of posing appears to be encouraging the outcome of the election. Brazil reported approximately 7,00,000 fatalities as a result.
