Ex-Con Defeats Incumbent in Brazilian Presidential Election
Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, colloquially known as ‘Lula’, defeated incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in a tightly contested election on Sunday night, and will be the next President of Brazil.
With 99% of the vote in, the self described socialist defeated the populist conservative Jair Bolsonaro by a margin of 50.9% – 49.1%. The election went to a run-off between the top two finishers after no candidate secured a majority in the first round: Lula led the pack with 48% to Bolsonaro’s 43%, but Bolsonaro outperformed polling which suggested that Lula would walk away with the contest in the first round.
Lula is a founding member of Brazil’s left-wing Worker’s Party. He was a perennial presidential candidate before finally coming to power in the 2002 Brazilian elections, and held office from 2003-2010. Lula is also a populist and something of an icon in Latin America, where his ideology, Lulism, is a popular strand of socialist thought.
Lula’s defeat of Bolsonaro follows a trend of left-wing governments coming to power across Latin America, described by some observers as a second ‘pink tide’ reminiscent of a similar political shift in the first years of the 21st century. In the final days of the campaign, President Bolsonaro spoke to Daily Wire Host Ben Shapiro about the potential stakes of the election.
“We in Brazil cannot possibly join the Venezuela club, or league of countries, which now includes Chile, Argentina, and Nicaragua. Brazil is the most important country in South America, so if Brazil succumbs to the left-wing, that’s the end of South America,” he said. (Read more from “Ex-Con Defeats Incumbent in Brazilian Presidential Election” HERE)
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