Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva picked up a tight victory in the Brazilian presidential election after a runoff over the weekend, narrowly beating out incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by less than 2% of the vote. It was the country’s tightest election since its return to democracy in 1985, and the first time that a sitting president failed to win re-election.
Just over 2 million votes separated the two candidates. The previous closest race, in 2014, was decided by a margin of roughly 3.5 million votes.
“Today the only winner is the Brazilian people,” da Silva said in a speech Sunday evening at a hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. “It’s the victory of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious.”
Winning the Brazilian presidential election marked a shocking comeback for da Silva. The leftist candidate served as president from 2003-2010 before being jailed for 580 days for corruption and money laundering. His convictions were later annulled by Brazil’s top court, which ruled the presiding judge had been biased and colluded with prosecutors.
“I send my congratulations to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on his election to be the next president of Brazil following free, fair, and credible elections,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday. “I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead.”
The Brazilian presidential election results mirrored the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, with Bolsonaro taking an early lead before da Sillva pulled ahead later on. When that happened cars in the streets of downtown Sao Paulo began honking their horns. People in the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema neighborhood could be heard shouting, “It turned!”
As of Monday morning, Bolsonaro had yet to publicly concede or react in any way. His campaign made repeated — unproven — claims of possible electoral manipulation before the votes were counted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
