Lula wins Brazil's runoff with 51.79% as Flávio Bolsonaro refuses to concede the result

A comeback runoff win

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil's presidential runoff on Sunday, 25 October, with 51.79% of the vote against 48.21% for Flávio Bolsonaro. More than 158 million electors were eligible to vote, and Lula's margin amounted to more than four million ballots. Flávio Bolsonaro had finished ahead in the first round, so Lula became the first candidate to reverse a first-round defeat and win the presidency. Abstention fell by two points, and about three million people who had not voted in the first round cast ballots in the second, according to La Razón. Lula, who is 81, will begin a fourth presidential term in early January.

Lula51.79%

Flávio Bolsonaro48.21%

Lula

51.79 %

Flávio Bolsonaro

48.21 %

Data from the article text

Mobilisation and the campaign

Celebrations broke out on Sunday night in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other cities, with young people filling streets and squares. Lula gave his victory speech on Paulista avenue in São Paulo, where he credited mass demonstrations led by young Brazilians and a social media campaign run over the final three weeks. Those rallies followed a gathering on Paulista avenue on Saturday, 24 October, which La Razón says drew nearly two million people. Political scientist Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, speaking to EL MUNDO in Sao Paulo, put the turnaround down to a series of errors by Flávio Bolsonaro's camp, which began the runoff as if it had already won. He also pointed to Flávio's aggressive debate style, which alienated moderate right-wing voters, and said defeated first-round candidates did little to help him in the second round.

Bolsonaro camp rejects the outcome

While Lula supporters celebrated, the Bolsonaro campaign said it would not accept the result. It pointed to the electoral authorities' decision to keep polling stations open for two hours after the official close, a change that reports tie to transport problems. Flávio Bolsonaro said he would never know how many votes he could have won and announced he would ask for the election to be annulled. Carvalho Teixeira rated the chances of annulment at zero given the size of the gap, and said the Liberal Party (PL) of the Bolsonaros had itself requested the extension, calling the challenge mere playacting for supporters.

Trump and the regional reaction

Donald Trump questioned the result on Monday, 26 October. He said he does not run Brazil and gets along well with Lula, but described the extended voting as strange, saying it made a terrible impression and that the election looked rigged. He offered no evidence for those claims, despite having praised Brazil's electoral system against the American one after the first round. The Trump administration, closely allied with the Bolsonaro family, decided not to recognise the result after first preparing a draft statement. Several Latin American allies of Flávio Bolsonaro nonetheless recognised Lula's win, according to La Razón. Lula framed the Paulista rally as a defence of Brazil's autonomy against outside pressure, a reference to complaints about US interference in the vote.

What comes next

Lula will govern with a Congress dominated by the bolsonarista right and the Centrão parties, a bloc of clientelist groups. He said he now has to govern for 215 million Brazilians, including those who backed his rival. Flávio Bolsonaro stops being a senator in February and loses special privileges, so the investigations he is involved in will run their normal course, according to Carvalho Teixeira. Asked whether Flávio could follow his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is in the United States, the professor did not rule it out.

“I do not see it as impossible, and I do not rule it out.”

Carvalho Teixeira noted that Eduardo has already hinted at such a move, which makes the question of Flávio leaving Brazil more than theoretical.