Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro fails to concede defeat to Lula da Silva

The former president has narrowly defeated the incumbent to secure a third term in a count that went down to the wire.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declares in Sao Paulo on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday called for “peace and unity” after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election, capping a remarkable political comeback by defeating right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro – who has yet to accept defeat.

The victory marks a turnaround for charismatic but tarnished leftist icon Lula, who left office in 2010 as the most popular president in Brazilian history, fell into disgrace when he was jailed for 18 months on controversial, since-quashed corruption charges, and now returns for an unprecedented third term at age 77.

All eyes will now be on how Mr Bolsonaro and his supporters react to the result, after months of alleging – without evidence – that Brazil’s electronic voting system is plagued by fraud and that the courts and media had conspired against his movement.

“This country needs peace and unity,” Mr Lula said to loud cheers in a victory speech in Sao Paulo.

“The challenge is immense,” he said of the job ahead of him, citing a hunger crisis, the economy, bitter political division and deforestation in the Amazon.

He later addressed a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who flooded the city centre clad in Workers’ Party red, declaring: “Democracy is back.”

Mr Bolsonaro, 67, was silent in the hours after the result was declared. “Anywhere in the world, the losing president would already have called to admit defeat. He hasn’t called yet. I don’t know if he will call and concede,” Lula told the crowd.

Some Bolsonaro supporters, gathered in Brasilia, refused to accept the results. “The Brazilian people aren’t going to swallow a faked election and hand our nation over to a thief,” said 50-year-old teacher Ruth da Silva Barbosa.

In the closest race since Brazil returned to democracy after its 1964-1985 dictatorship, electoral officials declared Sunday’s election for Lula, who had 50.9 per cent of the vote with more than 99.9 per cent of polling stations reporting.

Mr Bolsonaro, dubbed the Tropical Trump, meanwhile becomes the first incumbent ­president not to win re-election in the post-dictatorship era.

With no word from Mr Bolsonaro, some of his key allies appeared in public to accept the results, including the speaker of the lower house of congress, Arthur Lira, who said it was time to “extend a hand to our adversaries, debate, build bridges”.

Congratulations for Lula poured in from US President Joe Biden as well as leaders from across Latin America.

Lula supporters around the country erupted into celebration. “We’ve had four years of a genocidal, hateful government,” said Maria Clara, a 26-year-old student, at a victory party in central Rio. “Today democracy won, and the possibility of dreaming of a better country again.”

In Brasilia, the tearful crowd of Bolsonaro supporters – outfitted in green and yellow, the colours of Brazil’s flag that the ex-army captain has adopted as his own – fell to their knees to pray.

Mr Bolsonaro surged to victory four years ago on a wave of outrage with politics as usual, but came under fire for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic – which left more than 680,000 dead in Brazil – as well as a weak economy, his polarising style and attacks on democratic institutions.

Regardless of how the incumbent reacts, Lula will face huge challenges from the day he is inaugurated on January 1.

Mr Bolsonaro’s allies scored big victories in legislative and governors’ races in the first-round election on October 2, and his Liberal Party will be the largest force in congress. On Sunday, Mr Bolsonaro’s former infrastructure minister, Tarcisio de Freitas, clinched the governorship of Sao Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest state in the country.

In his victory speech, Lula touched on gender and racial equality and the urgent need to deal with a hunger crisis affecting 33.1 million Brazilians. “Today we tell the world that Brazil is back,” he said, adding that the country was “ready to reclaim its place in the fight against the climate crisis, especially the Amazon”. He vowed to “fight for zero deforestation”.

Lula’s win is “one of the biggest comebacks in modern political history,” tweeted Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly. But the president-elect would face a hostile congress and have “a weak government”.

None of that mattered for the time being to elated Lula supporters. “Brazil is starting to stand upright again after four years of darkness. We were going through so many problems, so much fear,” Larissa Meneses, a 34-year-old software developer, said in Sao Paulo. “Now with Lula’s victory, I really believe things will start getting better. This is a day to laugh a lot.”

AFP