Brazil’s former leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has completed an astonishing political comeback, beating the far-right, staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in one of the most significant elections in the country’s history, The Guardian reported.
With 99.97% of votes counted, Silva, a former factory worker who became Brazil’s first working-class president exactly 20 years ago, had garnered 50.9% of the vote. Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018, received 49.10%.
“We are going to live new times of peace, love and hope,” said da Silva, 77—who was sidelined from the 2018 election that saw Bolsonaro claim power after being jailed on corruption charges that were later annulled—while addressing journalists in Sao Paulo.
U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement congratulating Lula on his election “following free, fair and credible elections.” French President Emmanuel Macron said Lula da Silva’s election “kick-starts a new chapter in Brazil’s history” while Spanish President Pedro Sanchez called Lula’s triumph a move toward “progress and hope.”
According to CNN, Lula da Silva will preside over a country plagued by gross inequality that is still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost 10 million people fell under the poverty line between 2019 and 2021, and literacy and school attendance rates have fallen. He will also be faced with a deeply fractured nation and urgent environmental issues, including rampant deforestation in the Amazon.