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Lula calls for peace after winning Brazil’s presidential election
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the incoming president of Brazil, called for “peace and unity” after defeating incumbent far-right Jair Bolsonaro in a contentious runoff election on Sunday.
The victory represents a stunning turnaround for the charismatic but tarnished leftist heavyweight who entered office in 2010 as the most popular president in Brazilian history, fell into disgrace when he was imprisoned for 18 months on contentious charges that have since been dropped, and now runs for a record-breaking third term at age 77.
After months of claiming — without any proof — that Brazil’s electronic voting system is rife with fraud and that the courts, media, and other institutions had colluded against his far-right movement, all eyes will now be on how Bolsonaro and his supporters respond to the outcome.
“This country needs peace and unity,” Lula said to loud cheers in a victory speech in Sao Paulo.
“The challenge is immense,” he said of the job ahead, citing a hunger crisis, the economy, bitter political division, and deforestation in the Amazon.
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He later addressed a tightly packed crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who flooded the city centre clad in Workers’ Party red, vowing: “democracy is back.”
Bolsonaro, 67, was silent in the hours after the result was declared.
“Anywhere in the world, the losing president would already have called to admit defeat. He hasn’t called yet, I don’t know if he will call and concede,” Lula told the massive crowd.
Some Bolsonaro supporters, gathered in the capital Brasilia, refused to accept the results.
