Lula’s ‘miracle’ victory buys time for Brazil, resonates globally amid rise of far-right

Three weeks ago, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s political obituaries had all been written.

The far-right presidential candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro, had come out of the first round of the presidential election with a lead that looked impossible to overcome.

At 80 years old, Lula seemed headed for a quiet exit after four decades at the centre of Brazilian political life.

On Sunday, however, Lula proved everyone wrong. He won the runoff and secured a fourth non-consecutive term as Brazil’s president.

A night of firsts

The election result is unprecedented in Brazilian politics in at least three ways.

First, no Brazilian presidential candidate had ever won the first round and then lost the runoff. Since the two-round system was adopted by the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, the first-round leader had always gone on to win.

Lula broke that pattern by turning a defeat of around 2.2 million votes in the first round into a solid victory, in three weeks.

Second, no Brazilian president has ever been elected to four terms. When his new term ends, Lula will have governed Brazil for 16 (non-consecutive) years – the longest democratically elected tenure in the country’s history.

Only Getúlio Vargas governed longer. He held power for almost two decades through a revolution, dictatorship and democratic...

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