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“It is impossible to recognize the results. I am going to request the annulment of these elections,” said Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted last year over a plot to violently maintain power following Lula’s 2022 election win. On Sunday, the younger Bolsonaro pointed to the Brazilian Supreme Court’s decision to keep polls open for two hours past the scheduled deadline as a reason to dispute the results – even though both Lula and Bolsonaro pushed for the extension, for different reasons.
Numerous world leaders, including Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, congratulated Lula on his reelection win over Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump. The US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which sounded the alarm about the Trump administration’s attempts to interfere in the Brazilian elections ahead of Sunday’s runoff, said in a statement on Sunday that “governments – including the Trump administration – should immediately recognize the outcome, to prevent a possible coup or further violence.”
“It’s likely that Flávio Bolsonaro will, like his father in late 2022, encourage his supporters to mobilize in order to try to overturn the election results, which could trigger a new wave of political violence,” said Alex Main, CEPR’s director of international policy who was in Brazil for the elections. “The Trump administration, which has close relations with the Bolsonaro family, could help defuse this threat by joining other governments in recognizing the election outcome.”
Trump, who hosted Bolsonaro at the White House in May, has yet to comment on the Brazilian election results, as of this writing. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose department led the effort to tilt the election in Bolsonaro’s favor, has also not publicly commented on Sunday’s results.
Mark Weisbrot, CEPR’s co-director, called Lula’s win “a victory for democracy and independence in the Americas against the massive intervention from the Trump administration in favor of the Bolsonaro team.”
“This included politically driven tariffs and other efforts to influence the campaign,” said Weisbrot. “Trump also tried to stop the trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who – like Trump – refused to accept his defeat in a presidential election, and was convicted of attempting a coup d’état and attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.”
Lula win doesn’t fit Donroe Doctrine
Lula’s victory comes despite the best efforts of US President Donald Trump and his Big Tech backers, as Trump’s administration openly intervened on behalf of Bolsonaro and Meta boosted pro-Bolsonaro over pro-Lula content on its social media platforms.
“Lula won, Brazil won, democracy won, the Americas won,” said Pennsylvania Democratic House nominee Chris Rabb from Lula’s campaign headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, after the results were announced around 9:15 pm Brasilia time. “They declared victory for Lula da Silva for his fourth term against a raging fascist, rubber-stamped for Donald Trump.”
“These elections have represented a historic victory for the majority of the Brazilian people, who mobilized to defend democracy against the threat of fascism.”
Rabb noted that Lula’s victory marked an important turning point for the left in Latin America, as far-right parties had won every other national election in the region since the start of Trump’s second term. “This is the first victory for democracy in this hemisphere since Trump took office,” Rabb said.
After finishing two percentage points behind Bolsonaro in the October 4 poll, Lula re-energized his campaign by finally shortening the Brazilian workweek from six to five days, as his supporters launched demonstrations against the far-right.
Sunday’s victory did not come easily, as the Lula campaign complained of bus shortages in the key cities of Salvador and Sao Paulo, requesting that the Brazilian Supreme Court extend the voting by two hours. The court granted the request, so polls closed at 7 pm Brasilia time instead of 5 pm.
“Lula has won despite the unfair practices his campaign has faced from Meta, interference from the Trump administration, and severe disruptions to public transportation on election day in major cities (where up to 50% of bus fleets were reportedly out of service),” Francesca Emanuele, senior international policy associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), told Common Dreams. “These disruptions disproportionately affected working-class voters, who rely heavily on public transportation and have historically been a key part of Lula’s electoral base.”
She continued: “Despite all these obstacles, Lula’s campaign managed to turn around a first-round result that, just a few weeks ago, had seemed extremely difficult to reverse. This is a major victory for the majority of the Brazilian people.”
“Lula’s hard-fought victory is an indictment on the right-wing wave sweeping through Latin America,” Joseph Bouchard, a journalist and researcher who focuses on Latin America, told Common Dreams. “Except for [ Salvadorian President Nayib] Bukele, the right across the region is still incredibly unpopular, and rightly seen as corrupt, autocratic, and uncommitted to fixing systemic issues. Lula shows there is still a fight for democracy worth having, while the region is plunged into its darkest, most regressive period since the Cold War. The entire region is populated by vassal states for US interests, who have declared states of exception to curtail rights, freedoms, and basic principles of social democracy, in the name of a failed and anti-human war on drugs.”
Lula’s victory also has planetary consequences, as he brought deforestation in the Amazon rainforest back down to record lows after it accelerated during the tenure of Jair Bolsonaro, who attacked environmental protections and Indigenous rights.
“Lula’s win is the first good news for the planet in a while!” wrote 350.org and Third Act co-founder Bill McKibben. “I bet it shaves a tenth of a degree off how hot our Earth eventually gets, which will save millions of lives. Thank you Brazil!”
Lula still faces a fight ahead, as Bolsonaro announced it was “impossible to concede the election result” due to the extension of polling hours, even though his team had also sought an extension in parts of southeastern Brazil because of unfavorable weather.
Bouchard pointed out that “Lula will fight an uphill battle with a far-right Congress, inept Supreme Court, and constant outside pressure..”
“Trump’s silence on the result is worrisome, with Flavio not conceding and demanding an annulment,” he told Common Dreams. “Sadly, much of the corporate press has legitimated these claims, despite the right’s concerted efforts at destroying democracy. No matter how much the authoritarians try to tip the scales, the people can still prevail, if the left is willing to fight. This might prove to be a confidence boost to the demoralized and overpowered left all over the region, and may hopefully set the region back toward progress, hard fought after decades of dictatorship and neoliberal transitions.”
