Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After defeating the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, 67, in a stunning comeback veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 77, on Sunday declared “Brazil is back”, and he will strive to see the great River Amazon becomes living once again.
Former Brazilian President Lula, who will return to power on January 1, 2023, defeated a highly controversial Bolsonaro, ending the country’s most right-wing government in decades.
“Brazil is ready to take back its role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all of our biomes, especially the Amazon forest,” Lula said, adding “Brazil and the planet needs a living Amazon.”
Lula polled 50.8 percent of votes against Bolsonaro’s 49.2 percent until 99.1 percent of voting machines counted, which the Supreme Electoral Court said was enough to “mathematically define” the outcome of the race, the media reported.
Voting was electronic, and they announced the results within two hours of polling stations closing on Sunday at 5 p.m. (2000 GMT).
The vote was a rebuke of Bolsonaro’s fiery far-right populism under whom Brazil ran up one of the worst death tolls of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his victory speech on Sunday, Lula called for “peace and unity” in a bitterly divided Brazil, saying the country was no longer an international pariah, and highlighting the need for a “living Amazon”.
He reached out to supporters and rivals alike, underlining the need for “a Brazil of peace, democracy, and opportunity.” He touched on gender and racial equality and the urgent need to deal with a hunger crisis affecting 33.1 million Brazilians.
“The wheel of the economy will turn again,” he promised.
“It is in no one’s interest to live in a divided nation in a permanent state of war. This country needs peace and unity. This population doesn’t want to fight anymore.”
“Today we tell the world that Brazil is back. It is too big to be banished to this sad role of global pariah.”
US President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and other world leaders congratulated Lula on returning to power as Brazilian President.
Lula’s victory consolidates a new “pink tide” in Latin America, after landmark leftist victories in Colombia and Chile’s elections, echoing a regional political shift two decades ago that brought him (Lula) to the world stage.
A former trade union leader born into poverty, Lula organized strikes against Brazil’s military government in the 1970s. A commodity-driven economic boom marked his two-term presidency, and he left office with record popularity.
However, his Workers Party was later tarred by a deep recession and unprecedented corruption scandal that jailed him for 19 months on bribery convictions, which were, however, overturned by the Supreme Court last year.
In his third term, Lula will confront a sluggish economy, tighter budget constraints, and a more hostile legislature. Bolsonaro’s allies still form the largest bloc in Congress after October’s general election revealed the enduring strength of his conservative rightist coalition.