It was Latin America’s most hotly contested run-off for decades. Yet despite his corruption convictions, Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the second round at the end of October, winning 50.9 per cent of the vote compared with Bolsonaro’s 49.1 per cent.
‘They tried to bury me alive, and yet here I am,’ announced Lula triumphantly in his victory speech. It was a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for the Workers’ Party candidate, who, just three years earlier, was serving a 12-year prison sentence over charges linked to Brazil’s infamous Car Wash corruption investigation.
Allegations of vote-buying, political sabotage and tax evasion tarnished the reputation of the former president and his party, but Lula was released from prison after 580 days in November 2019. His convictions were annulled in 2021 by Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, which ruled that Sérgio Moro – the judge who presided over the investigation that put Lula in prison and later became Bolsonaro’s justice minister – was not impartial. A UN Human Rights Committee also concluded in 2022 that Lula’s original trial violated due process.
This paved the way for Lula to seek re-election. His dramatic comeback comes as Brazil’s economy remains stagnant and society deeply polarised, scarred by the Bolsonaro administration’s mishandling of the pandemic that led to close to 700,000 deaths. Many Brazilians yearned to return to the economic prosperity and social gains that characterised Lula’s presidency between 2003 and 2010 as Brazil rode high on the commodity boom.
Lula’s inclusive policies and ability to forge strong political alliances were also crucial to him winning the run-off, says Julia Cani, a PhD candidate in law at the University of São Paulo and Fox International Fellow at Yale University. ‘When Bolsonaro won four years ago, he said that the minority should band to the majority, which meant a government directed towards the majority of the people,’ says Cani. ‘When Lula won this year’s election, he said he would govern for all, meaning he would govern not only the ones who voted for him, but also those who voted for the defeated candidate.’
Although many of his policies are still to be determined, international environmentalists have welcomed Lula’s pro-climate pledges. The president-elect used COP27 to reassert his commitment to tackle deforestation and highlight plans for a rainforest preservation partnership with Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He’s also expected to re-appoint Amazon-born environmentalist Marina da Silva as environment minister and establish a separate ministry to represent the interests of Indigenous peoples.
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