Pro-Palestine Lula wins fourth term as Brazil's president

With nearly complete results from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Lula of the Workers’ Party (PT) obtained approximately 51.78 percent of valid votes -- roughly 64.2 million ballots -- against 48.22 percent for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL), the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The margin exceeded four million votes. This marks the first time since Brazil’s return to direct presidential elections in 1989 that a candidate who finished second in the first round reversed the result in the runoff.

Lula also recorded the highest absolute vote total ever achieved by a presidential candidate in Brazilian history, surpassing his own 2022 mark.

The comeback was decisive. In the first round on 4 October, Flávio Bolsonaro led with 47.03 percent to Lula’s 45.16 percent. Between rounds, Lula gained more than 10 million additional votes, driven by strong turnout in the Northeast, which is the historic heartland of the Workers’ Party, gains in key states such as Minas Gerais, and advances in major urban centers.

Abstention fell and blank and null votes declined, reflecting broad popular mobilization.

In his first remarks after the TSE confirmed the result, Lula, who turns 81 on Tuesday, described the outcome as “a defeat of denialism and lies.”

He stressed that Brazil “will not be anyone’s backyard,” a direct reaffirmation of the country’s independent path and rejection of external pressures. Lula pledged to govern for all 215 million Brazilians, to deepen popular participation, and to regulate digital platforms that he said had attempted to interfere in the electoral process.

Lula thanked the Brazilian people, particularly the youth and women who mobilized in defense of democratic gains, and noted that from the moment the election is won, there are no longer adversaries, only the task of governing the entire nation.

Vice President Geraldo Alckmin hailed the result as Lula having “saved Brazilian democracy for the second time.” International progressive leaders quickly congratulated the president-elect.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum declared: “Long live democracy, the people of Brazil won. Congratulations, President Lula.”

Leaders from Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Panama, and Cuba also extended recognition, underscoring Brazil’s continued role as a pillar of Latin American sovereignty and Global South cooperation.

The election day itself saw a last-minute two-hour nationwide extension of voting hours ordered by Supreme Federal Court Justice Cristiano Zanin after reports of disrupted public transport in several states, a measure intended to protect the right to vote.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s camp has refused to concede, calling the extension an unacceptable change of rules and announcing plans to seek annulment of the election, echoing familiar far-right tactics of contesting legitimate results.

The TSE has affirmed the integrity of the process, and the arithmetic of the count leaves no room for reversal. Such challenges, observers note, risk further polarizing a country that has now twice chosen continuity of progressive governance over a return to the Bolsonaro family’s far-right project.

Lula’s fourth term, beginning January 5, 2027, will unfold against a Congress that remains fragmented and in a region where right-wing forces have advanced elsewhere. Yet the Brazilian electorate has once again demonstrated its capacity to reverse expectations through organized popular strength.

The victory consolidates more than two decades of PT governance at key moments and positions Brazil to continue asserting an independent foreign policy, defending the Amazon, and advancing social inclusion against external attempts to dictate its course.

In the words of the reelected president, this is the victory of the Brazilian people. The institutions have spoken, the votes have been counted, and the mandate is clear.