Brazilian voters narrowly decided against a second term for far-right president Jair Bolsonaro at national elections on Oct. 30, opting instead for the return of leftwing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took 50.86% of the vote against Bolsonaro’s 49.14% with more than 99% of votes counted.
The result is a stunning political comeback for Lula—as the 77-year-old president-elect is universally known. Lula left office in 2010 with an 83% approval rating, after overseeing an economic boom and a jump in living standards for poorer Brazilians. But in 2017, federal prosecutors implicated Lula in a vast corruption scheme and sent him to prison on charges of accepting a bribe. He, and Brazil’s left, have always denied the allegations and in 2021 Brazil’s Supreme Court overturned his conviction, ruling that his right to a fair trial had been compromised. That cleared him to run for president again this year.
The race was Brazil’s closest-run in three decades. Voters faced a stark ideological choice between Lula, a progressive leftist, and Bolsonaro, a deeply conservative populist who promised to defend Christian values in Brazil. Bolsonaro becomes the first incumbent to lose a re-election bid in Brazil since the 1990s.
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Bolsonaro, a 67 year-old former army captain, has captured international attention over the last four years for his dismantling of protections for the Amazon rainforest, his fierce opposition to COVID-19 vaccines and social distancing, and a series of offensive statements about women and minorities. In Brazil, Bolsonaro’s presidency has been marked by a wide-ranging relaxation of gun laws, an expansion of police powers, a crusade against so-called “gender ideology,” and a series of scandals involving…
Source : time
