Lula wins Brazil’s bitter presidential vote, Bolsonaro silent
Brazilian president-elect for the leftist Workers Party Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva greets supporters at the Paulista avenue after winning the presidential run-off election, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 30 October 2022. Lula was elected president Sunday by a hair's breadth, beating his far-right rival, reelectionist Jair Bolsonaro, in a down-to-the-wire poll that split the country in two, election officials said. (Photo by CAIO GUATELLI / AFP)
Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for "peace and unity" after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election Sunday, capping a remarkable political comeback by defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro — who has yet to accept defeat.
The victory marks a stunning 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 imprisoned 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 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, media, and other institutions had conspired against his far-right movement.
"This country needs peace and unity," 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 tightly packed crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who flooded the city center clad in Workers' Party red, vowing: "democracy is back."
'He hasn't called yet'
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 massive crowd.
Some Bolsonaro supporters, gathered in the capital 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 the election for Lula, who had 50.9 percent of the vote to 49.1 percent for Bolsonaro with more than 99.9 percent of polling stations reporting.