Lula Wins a Fourth Term but Bolsonaro Demands Annulment

The two results of the weekend sit oddly together and the contrast is the point. In Belgrade a long-serving leader conceded before the count had finished; in Brasília a candidate refused to accept a completed count and asked for it to be voided. Brazil’s electoral authority had confirmed the outcome before that demand was made. His stated ground is a judge’s decision, taken three minutes before polls were due to shut, to extend voting by two hours — a decision his own campaign had also requested, citing heavy rain in the south where he was favoured. The history makes the margin remarkable: never before in Brazil’s democratic era has the runner-up of a first round gone on to win the presidency. Lula had trailed 47% to 45% three weeks ago. He turns eighty-one tomorrow, serving a fourth non-consecutive term; his opponent is forty-five, and his father is serving twenty-seven years over a coup plot. Addressing supporters in a São Paulo conference hall he framed it as a verdict rather than a victory: “We are going to change the way that this country is governed… This election was a defeat for denialism… it was democracy that made this happen.”