Lula in stunning comeback to become Brazil’s next president

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Former president and leftist Luis Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday defeated incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in an election runoff that marked a stunning comeback for him for a third time and the end of Brazil’s most right-wing government in decades.

Lula won 50.9% of votes compared with 49.1% for Bolsonaro, the Supreme Electoral Court said, declaring former president Lula the winner. The 77-year-old Lula’s inauguration is scheduled for January 1.

The vote was a rebuke for the fiery far-right populism of Bolsonaro, who emerged from the back benches of Congress to forge a novel conservative coalition but lost support as Brazil ran up one of the worst death tolls of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bolsonaro, 67, who for years has made baseless claims that Brazil’s voting system is prone to fraud, remained silent initially about the result. Electoral authorities are bracing for him to dispute the outcome, sources told Reuters, and made security preparations in case his supporters stage protests.

“Democracia,” Lula wrote on Twitter, above a photo of the Brazilian flag beneath his left hand, missing his little finger, the result of an accident he suffered as a metalworker decades ago.

He was greeted by ecstatic supporters at a rally on Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue ahead of a planned speech. Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and campaign aides jumped up and down chanting, “It’s time Jair, it’s time to leave already,” in a video circulating on social media.

Foreign leaders from US President Joe Biden to France’s Emmanuel Macron to Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez offered Lula messages of congratulations.