Lula defeats Flavio Bolsonaro to seal historic Brazilian comeback

By defeating Trump ally Flavio Bolsonaro, Lula became the first candidate in Brazil to come from behind in the first round and triumph in the run-off.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won re-election on Sunday, reversing his first-round deficit in the presidential run-off.

With 99.83% of the ballots counted, the Superior Electoral Court announced that Lula had secured 51.76% of the valid votes, while right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro received 48.24%. Since Brazil adopted its two-round electoral system in 1989, no candidate who finished behind in the opening round had ever won the presidency in the run-off.

Far-right challenger Flavio Bolsonaro declared that he did not recognize the results and would seek judicial intervention to annul the election.

According to national media reports, Bolsonaro cited a decision by Federal Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin to extend voting hours by two hours as the basis for his challenge.

The ruling was issued by Justice Zanin, who served as Lula’s defence lawyer before his appointment to the Supreme Court in 2023. Zanin intervened after Lula’s campaign lodged a complaint alleging that buses were kept in depots across cities governed by Flavio Bolsonaro’s allies in the state of Bahia, preventing low-income voters from reaching polling stations.

Flavio Bolsonaro’s legal team had also submitted a separate petition to the electoral court requesting an extension of voting hours in 17 flood-hit municipalities across three states.

By the time Zanin’s ruling reached polling stations, voting machines at many precincts had already been shut down. The electronic system did not permit deactivated machines to be reopened. Consequently, the Superior Electoral Court instructed regional electoral courts to allow voting until 19:00 only at stations that remained open. Zanin narrowed the scope of his order accordingly.

While some electors were turned away without voting at 17:00, others were permitted to cast their ballots until 19:00. Both campaigns could cite these discrepancies to demand the annulment of the election. Any such petition would be reviewed by the Superior Electoral Court, presided over by Kassio Nunes Marques, the first justice appointed to the Supreme Court by Jair Bolsonaro.

The outcome prevents Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy and the top global destination for Chinese outbound capital, from joining a bloc of pro-Trump administrations that includes Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. It also deals a blow to Washington’s efforts to curb China’s footprint across the Western Hemisphere.

Negotiations with the US over tariffs and critical minerals will proceed under an administration that offers American companies access to rare earth elements while rejecting preferential treatment.

Election platforms

Lula’s platform calls for developing a regional strategy to map and process critical minerals, as well as advancing the BRICS agenda, which Trump has threatened to penalize with additional tariffs.

At 80, Lula is the oldest serving president in Brazil’s history. More than two decades after first taking office, he will begin his fourth presidential term in January.

Lula, who governed the country between 2003 and 2010, returned to power in 2023 after narrowly defeating Senator Flavio Bolsonaro’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, in the 2022 election. Following that defeat, Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting to overturn the election results, a term he is currently serving.

Flavio Bolsonaro built his campaign around his ties to the Trump administration. Received in the Oval Office in May, Bolsonaro pledged to join a US-led security alliance in the Americas and offered Brazil’s rare earth reserves to Washington as an alternative to Chinese supply chains.

Lula was viewed as the favourite throughout most of the year. In January, a survey by polling firm Quaest showed Lula holding a seven-point lead over his rival in a hypothetical run-off.

Six of the seven pollsters publishing research before the first round showed Lula ahead. However, Lula finished the opening round trailing his rival by 2.2 million votes.

Most surveys conducted ahead of the run-off indicated that Flavio Bolsonaro held a narrow lead or that the two contenders were tied within the margin of error. Lula’s campaign focused on reinforcing negative voter perceptions of his rival while mobilizing electors who abstained in the first round.

Lula directed his political attacks at Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and Flavio Bolsonaro’s links to Daniel Vorcaro, a banker who is currently imprisoned.

Senator Bolsonaro had solicited $24 million from the banker to finance a biographical film about his father’s life, months before the central bank shut down the financial institution over suspected fraud.

Flavio Bolsonaro countered by highlighting a police investigation into Lula’s son, Fabio Luis.

In July, a Supreme Court justice authorized an investigation into whether Fabio Luis lobbied public officials on behalf of a company tied to an alleged scheme that illicitly deducted funds from pensioners’ paychecks. During a televised debate this month, Lula stated that the fraudulent scheme had originated under Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.

Sovereignty and Washington

Lula attempted to manage relations with Trump during a White House meeting lasting nearly three hours in May, as Brazil sought to avert a new wave of tariffs.

Washington had imposed tariffs of up to 50% on Brazilian goods the previous year to protest the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro.

During the meeting, Lula told the US president that Brazil’s critical minerals were open to any nation willing to process them domestically.

“Americans, Chinese, Germans, Japanese, French… Anyone who wishes to extract, refine, and generate the wealth offered by these rare earth elements alongside us is welcome,” Lula said in remarks following the meeting.

However, the talks failed to prevent Washington from levying 25% tariffs on most Brazilian goods in July. Lula placed the blame on the Bolsonaro family. Last year, the senator’s brother, Eduardo, lobbied in Washington for sanctions against Brazilian officials over their father’s prosecution.

Lula placed national sovereignty at the heart of his campaign. In a televised address in September, he declared that those willing to surrender Brazil’s rare earth reserves to foreign powers were “the true traitors to the homeland.”

Brazil holds the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earth elements after China.

“There are those abroad eyeing these resources, and those here ready to hand everything over on a silver platter,” Lula said. “This time, we will not merely export rocks and buy back technology.”

Two weeks later, Lula signed legislation establishing a national critical minerals policy that encompasses rare earth elements.

In the final week of the campaign, he accused the US government of interfering on behalf of Flavio Bolsonaro. Lula’s campaign also petitioned the Superior Electoral Court to revoke the senator’s candidacy, citing allegations that Meta Platforms artificially boosted Bolsonaro’s online reach.

Relations with Beijing

Lula travelled to Beijing in April 2023 in what his government described as an effort to revive bilateral ties that had cooled during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency.

During a tour of Huawei Technologies’ research centre in Shanghai, Lula called for the use of an alternative currency to the US dollar in bilateral trade.

Chinese President Xi Jinping reciprocated with an official visit to the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, in November 2024. During that visit, the two governments signed 37 agreements and elevated their bilateral relationship to a “community with a shared future.”

Brazil avoided formal accession to China’s global Belt and Road Initiative, opting instead to align the initiative with its own domestic investment programmes.

Lula returned to Beijing in May of last year for a summit with Latin American leaders, securing 27 billion reais ($4.7 billion) in total investment pledges from companies including Great Wall Motor and Meituan.

Chinese firms invested more capital in Brazil last year than those from any other nation, according to data from the Brazil-China Business Council. Spanning 52 projects, total investment reached a record $6.1 billion.

Bilateral trade hit a record $143 billion in the first nine months of this year, propelled by a surge in Brazilian oil sales after war in Iran disrupted crude shipments from the Gulf region.

The Brazilian Treasury is also preparing its debut issuance of yuan-denominated bonds in China, aiming to establish regular borrowing in the Chinese market.

BRICS

China will assume the rotating presidency of BRICS next year. The Lula administration’s programme envisions further strengthening ties with the bloc of emerging economies. Flavio Bolsonaro had suggested that he could withdraw Brazil from BRICS, an organization Washington has sought to weaken.

Less than two weeks after Washington announced its tariffs, Xi Jinping told Lula during a telephone call that China supported Brazil in “defending its sovereignty and independence and opposing external interference.”

The call, the second between the two leaders this year, lasted roughly an hour. Both sides agreed to accelerate negotiations toward a trade agreement between China and the South American trade bloc Mercosur, though no details of the pact were disclosed.