Between joy and relief, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians celebrated in the streets the election of leftist icon Lula, who will return to the presidency after beating the far-right outgoing president by a narrow margin. , Jair Bolsonaro.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva obtained 50.84% of the vote, against 49.16% for Jair Bolsonaro, based on the results of 99% of the polling stations.
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This is the tightest gap between two presidential finalists since the return to democracy after the military dictatorship (1964-1985).
The margin is much narrower than predicted by the polls, which had already heavily underestimated Jair Bolsonaro’s score before the first round.
Lula’s victory was greeted with fireworks and cheers in major Brazilian cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, AFP journalists noted.
Arms raised, body hoisted through the sunroof of a black car, the new president-elect was cheered by the crowd gathered outside his residence in Sao Paulo, where he followed the count.
“These are tears of joy, I am so moved! Lula will save us from fascism,” reacted Mary Alves Silva, 53, in tears on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo.
“It’s an indescribable feeling, Lula will change everything,” said Carolina Freio, a civil servant dressed in a long red dress who was partying in a bar in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro.
Lula was quickly praised by several foreign leaders. US President Joe Biden hailed his “free and fair” election, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, said his victory “opens a new page in the history of Brazil”.
Hope for a “healthy transition”
The 77-year-old former steelworker with an extraordinary destiny, who experienced hunger in his native Pernambuco (north-east) as a child, will officially return to the top of the state on 1er January.
“It’s the most important day of my life,” he said in the morning when voting.
Lula had achieved record popularity at the end of his first two terms (2003-2010), but he then experienced disgrace, going through prison after convictions for corruption finally canceled for formal defect.
After this narrow victory, Lula will have to deal with a Parliament that leans clearly to the right and will have to forge vast alliances to govern.
“This tight result shows that Bolsonaro’s campaign was more effective in convincing new voters, but it was not enough,” Leandro Consentino, political scientist at the private faculty Insper, told AFP.
Jair Bolsonaro is the first president running for a second term not to be re-elected since the return to democracy in 1985 and he remained silent an hour after the announcement of his defeat.
His reaction was eagerly awaited: after launching relentless attacks on the “fraudulent” system of electronic ballot boxes, he claimed on Friday: “Whoever has the most votes wins. It’s democracy” – without convincing.
When he voted in the morning, Lula hoped that the Bolsonaro government would be “civilized” and “understand (it) that a healthy transition is necessary”.
“I hope that if I win the election, he will have a moment of wisdom and call me to acknowledge the result,” Lula said last Monday.
Many fear a Brazilian replica of the assault on Capitol Hill after the defeat of Donald Trump which could target, for example, the Supreme Court so often vilified by Bolsonaro.
Ultrapolarized Campaign
“Bolsonaro will question the result,” said Rogerio Dultra dos Santos, of the Federal University of Fluminense, on the eve of the election.
The ex-captain can count on “the support of his most radicalized voters […] and cause trouble”, according to the analyst, who does not see the armed forces venturing into a coup and underlines that the democratic institutions are solid.
The campaign between the two men who oppose everything took place in a brutal and ultrapolarized climate which saw them insult each other copiously while social networks carried torrents of misinformation.
No violent incident has marred the vote of some 156 million Brazilians called to the polls on Sunday.
But this second round was marked by a lively controversy around the filtering barriers of the Federal Road Police (PRF) which held back voters, especially from the poor regions of the northeast, Lula’s electoral stronghold.
Twelve Brazilian state governors were also elected on Sunday, including Bolsonarian Tarcisio de Freitas in the state of Sao Paulo, the most populous and wealthy in Brazil.