Brazilians delivered a very tight victory to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a bitter presidential election, giving the Leftist former President another shot at power in a rejection of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro’s far-Right politics.
Da Silva received 50.9 per cent of the vote and Bolsonaro 49.1 per cent, according to the country’s election authority. Yet the morning after the results came in — and congratulations had poured in from world leaders, including from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi — Bolsonaro still had yet to publicly concede or react in any way, even as truckers blockaded some roads across the country in protest.
Bolsonaro’s campaign had made repeated and unproven claims of possible electoral manipulation before the vote, raising fears that, if he lost, he would not accept defeat.