Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won Brazil’s presidential election by a whisker, but with incumbent Jair Bolsonaro still not conceding defeat there were concerns the far-right contender might challenge the result.
According to international media, Lula secured 50.8 percent of the vote compared with 49.2 percent for Bolsonaro on Sunday.
“Today the only winner is the Brazilian people,” da Silva told the crowds gathered at a Sao Paulo hotel. “This isn’t a victory of mine or the Workers’ Party, nor the parties that supported me in campaign. It’s the victory of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious.”
Bolsonaro had been leading throughout the first half of the vote count, but as soon as Lula took the lead, the streets of Sao Paulo’s city centre filled with the sound of cars honking their horns.
The election was Brazil’s most polarising poll since its return to democracy in 1985 after a military dictatorship that Lula, a former union leader, has rallied against and Bolsonaro, a former army captain, invokes with nostalgia.
The vote also marked the first time that the sitting president failed to win re-election. Just over two million votes separated the two candidates; the previous closest race, in 2014, was decided by a margin of roughly 3.5 million votes.
