Celebrations after Lula's victory: Brazil in ecstasy

Brazil's Lula has done it again. On Sunday he clearly defeated the right-wing Flávio Bolsonaro and will take up his fourth term in office in January. He won the presidential election with 51.8 percent of the vote against Flávio Bolsonaro, who got 48.2 percent of the vote. As soon as Lula led the count, people started celebrating.

Bolsonaro immediately announced that he did not want to acknowledge his defeat against Lula. He is calling for the election to be annulled. Bolsonaro justified his demand with the short-term extension of the voting period by a Supreme Court judge. The decision was unprecedented, he explained. It is impossible to accept the result.

On Election Day, cities in eight states reported reduced use of local buses, which are required by law to transport voters to polling stations free of charge.

In addition, bad weather in parts of the country has made it difficult to vote. The decision to extend the vote was only made three minutes before the regular voting deadline. Some polling stations were notified after they had already closed. It is unclear how many votes were cast during the additional voting period.

“Rubbishness,” complained the election loser, who was so sure of his victory that he was already speculating about ministerial posts and organizing a victory party in Brasília. He rejected the election results and announced that he would have the election annulled. He left unmentioned the fact that his PL party had also requested an extension of the election time - but only in the southwest of the country, which is home to the largest right-wing electorate.

The president of the electoral court, Kássio Nunes Marques, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by former President Jair Bolsonaro, said the extension of the voting period had no impact on the result.

According to the daily Folha de São Paulo, some of the chief justices criticized the decision-making process for taking too long, but it was not expected that an annulment would be accepted. The dates for both the presidential and runoff elections are enshrined in the Brazilian constitution and are immutable.

In the first round of voting, Flávio Bolsonaro was two points ahead of Lula, and hardly anyone seriously expected the almost 81-year-old to win. The criticism was that there was too little youth in the party, too little presence on social media, too little change. But things turned out differently.

Although there are many over-sixty-year-olds in the PT workers' party, masses of students suddenly took to the streets for the right to education.

MP André Janones, who led Lula's digital election campaign in 2022, mobilized 11 million people on a Whatsapp channel to carry out his "missions" several times a day: to spotlight Flávio's dubious past and Lula's assets as effectively as possible.

Many Brazilians, especially younger ones, were unaware of how many social programs were created by Lula. The fact that the lawyer Bolsonaro had defended a police officer who shot a five-year-old girl was just as little known as his participation in parties with prostitutes for political favors.

Lula and his followers dominated social networks with their topics, although according to PT research, the content of the right achieved greater reach on Meta than that of the left, even from accounts with fewer followers. The President of the Supreme Electoral Court had the WhatsApp channel “Exército do Lula” blocked several times, but the decisions were always overturned because neither false reports nor the use of bots could be proven. Instead, influencers, musicians, actors and other celebrities got involved in Lula's election campaign.

In TV debates, the Bolsonaro offspring, who presented himself as a moderate version of his right-wing radical father, stood out for his arrogance and lack of expertise. This frightened many voters. A few days before the runoff election, the 80-year-old Lula was on par with his 35-year-younger competitor in polls.

The cowboy and farmer Zé Vieira from Serra Branca in the state of Paraíba, who supported Father Bolsonaro in 2022, says in an Instagram video that reached hundreds of thousands: "I expected that my candidate would present evidence that he had not defended the murderer of the little girl. That he would show evidence of what had happened to the 134 million that the banker had given him." Cows walk by in the background of the video. "But he said nothing! I saw courage in the eyes of an 80-year-old and cowardice in the eyes of a man in the prime of his youth. I will vote 13 on October 25th." The farmer's change of heart inspired countless imitators from the conservative milieu.

In the runoff election, in which Lula received more than 10 million more votes compared to the first round, he addressed his voters in an emotional speech. “This election was a defeat for negationism and lies,” he declared, clearly referring to his opponent. Vice Geraldo Alckmin told Lula that he had “saved democracy for the second time.” When the Supreme Electoral Court confirmed the result, cheers broke out: car parades, crowds, deafening excitement of victory everywhere. Lula is the first president to be elected to a fourth term, the first to win in the runoff after losing in the first round.

While crowds in São Paulo celebrated Lula's election victory on Avenida Paulista with chants, flags and firecrackers, Flávio Bolsonaro had to have the stage dismantled for his planned speech in Brasília.