On Sunday night, the beaches of Rio de Janeiro filled with red and the sound of vuvuzelas. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — a metalworker who has spent a lifetime losing elections, winning them, governing, and being jailed — had done what no Brazilian presidential candidate has managed in nearly four decades: he came back from behind to take a fourth, non-consecutive term, Al Jazeera reported.
He turns 81 on Tuesday. Official results give him 51.8 percent of the vote against 48.2 percent for Flavio Bolsonaro, the far-right senator and son of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president now in jail. Lula had lost the first round to the younger Bolsonaro. He hailed the turnout on Sunday, saying Brazilians had “voted to defend democracy.”
The margin of history, this time, is two hours. Brazil’s Supreme Court extended polling by that much — a decision Bolsonaro’s camp calls “unacceptable,” though Al Jazeera noted that both candidates had requested additional voting time. The defeated senator has refused to accept the result and promises to seek its annulment. The justice who signed the extension order, Cristiano Zanin, is now the axis of the quarrel.
The street answers first
Whatever the courts decide, the street has already voted with its body. In Rio, crowds draped in Brazil’s green-and-yellow and Lula’s trademark red danced along the beachfront and central avenues, sang campaign songs, chanted pro-democracy slogans; in Sao Paulo, thousands in the red of the Workers’ Party packed the central squares and major roads, waving banners and setting off flares in scenes compared to football title celebrations, photographers for AFP, AP and Reuters recorded. Fireworks went up over city after city. His supporters read the win as a resounding repudiation of authoritarianism, and a renewed mandate for Brazil’s left.
It is an old lesson of power, learned from Warsaw to Recife: the palace deliberates, the crowd declares, and sometimes the crowd is right first — and sometimes it only goes home tired.
The world’s telegrams
The congratulations arrived in the old geography of Latin solidarity, and in some newer postcodes. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, wrote on X: “Long live democracy, the people of Brazil won.” Cuba’s Miguel Diaz-Canel called the win “historic” and said it “ensures the continuity of the path of peace, sovereignty, and social justice.” Chile’s Jose Antonio Kast — no man of the left — phoned Lula and spoke of economic integration and the fight against organised crime; Peru’s Keiko Fujimori pledged cooperation on the Amazon. Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, Panama’s Jose Raul Mulino, Paraguay’s Santiago Pena, Uruguay’s Yamandu Orsi and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa all sent congratulations, and Argentina’s former president Cristina Kirchner praised Lula for knowing “how to awaken in your compatriots feeling and sense to win this battle.”
From Europe, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proclaimed that democracy and multilateralism “have won” in Brazil, promising work on “free and open trade. A rules-based global order. And strong ambitions for our climate.” Canada’s Mark Carney urged the two countries to “seize this opportunity” for commerce, the environment and shared prosperity.
Washington answered with two voices, which is its custom these days. Donald Trump Jr. attacked the two-hour extension: “If a conservative government in Brazil did this, everyone in the mainstream press in America would lose their minds, but I guess they’re just choosing to be silent because it’s all for the cause.” Bernie Sanders saluted an “extraordinary re-election victory” by a president who has “stood up” for workers and democracy. Congressman Ro Khanna wrote that “authoritarian leaders always attack democracy because they stand no chance against the will of their people,” and added that President Trump “must respect the results and not undermine Brazil’s elections.” New York’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted, “The people united will never be defeated!” and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said the state was “proud to stand with Brazil.”
So the fourth term begins the way the third one ended in the family saga: with a Bolsonaro refusing to concede, a court in the center of the storm, and an old man in a red tie who has outlasted them all — for now, and by two hours of extra time.