Latin America’s Most Influential Statesman Halts a Right-Wing Surge

Ana Ionova

No politician has made a bigger mark on Brazil than President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Over three terms in office, he helped lift millions out of poverty, fought for workers’ rights and became, for a time, the face of a powerful leftist tide sweeping Latin America.

But changing political currents meant that Lula, the region’s most influential statesman, faced a tough battle as he sought to win reelection in a region where right-wing candidates have won the last seven presidential races.

But Lula shocked many on Sunday by staging a spectacular comeback, defeating his right-wing rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of President Donald Trump who had aligned himself with Washington on issues such as using lethal force to fight gangs.

Lula’s unlikely victory in Brazil marked a stunning rebuke to the advance of the right, breathing new life into a left-wing movement that had appeared on the brink of extinction in Latin America.

Lula has offered a rare example of resistance to Washington’s strategy to project military and economic might in the region, pushing back against Trump as he has tried to squeeze Brazil with tariffs and sanctions.

By contrast, Lula’s right-wing opponent, Bolsonaro, had promised to join a U.S.-led regional security alliance and had offered Brazil’s vast critical mineral deposits as a way to lessen U.S. reliance on China.

Lula, 80, headed into Sunday’s race as the underdog after drawing fewer voters than Bolsonaro in a first round of elections this month.

But on Sunday, Lula achieved a stunning comeback, winning 51.8% of the vote versus 48.2% for Bolsonaro. Lula’s margin of victory was roughly double the margin by which he defeated Bolsonaro’s father four years ago.

To many in Brazil, Lula’s remarkably strong showing signaled that voters weren’t quite ready to give up on the leftist leader’s vision for Brazil.

And it was a testament to the power of political organization: In the final stretch of campaigning, Lula and his allies worked to mobilize millions of Brazilians, on social media and on the streets.

Seeking to spotlight a corruption scandal dogging Bolsonaro’s campaign, Lula also challenged his rival to open up his financial statements and phone records to public scrutiny, vowing to do the same. Bolsonaro said he would oblige only after reviewing Lula’s records, which the leftist offered to electoral authorities last week.

Still, Sunday’s results also revealed a deeply divided Brazil, highlighting that Bolsonaro’s bold proposals for tackling organized crime, high grocery bills and a sluggish economy resonated with millions of working-class Brazilians who in the past may have cast a ballot for Lula.

“It’s really about this profound sense of fatigue,” said Camila Rocha, a political scientist who studies the rise of the Brazilian right, said of Lula. “Alongside a deep desire for renewal.”

On the campaign trail, Lula pointed to his economic achievements over the last four years, while also warning that restoring the Bolsonaro family to power posed a risk to Brazil’s democracy. Bolsonaro’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year-sentence for attempting a coup after losing the last election to Lula.

Lula also defended his broader political legacy, built on decades of social programs that relieved widespread hunger, expanded education opportunities and reduced deep inequality in the last nation in the Americas to abolish slavery.

“Inequality and underdevelopment are the result of policy choices,” Lula told the United Nations General Assembly in September. “It is possible to include the poor in the budget and make the rich pay their fair share.”

Yet, for much of his campaign, the leftist leader, whom former President Barack Obama once called the “most popular politician on Earth,” had struggled to stir excitement among Brazilian voters whose electoral priorities appear to have shifted.

Even though in the past four years Brazil’s economy has grown modestly and unemployment has fallen to its lowest rates on record, rising household debt and an affordability crisis have left many ordinary Brazilians feeling worse off.

Some of Bolsonaro’s libertarian ideas, such as a hands-off state, lower taxes and cutting red tape for the self-employed, have also appealed to a growing portion of the working class that is migrating to the gig economy.

“There is a new kind of working class in Brazil,” said Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, a professor at University College Dublin who studies Brazil’s populist movements. “And it has a new way of viewing prosperity.”

Despite these shifts, Lula was able to win over some of the millions of Brazilians who stayed home in the first round, voted for other losing candidates or annulled their ballots.

In an effort to lift his approval rating heading into the elections, Lula had increased how much people receive under the government’s signature welfare program and granted temporary fuel subsidies to ease the pain of rising prices because of the war in Iran.

He also expanded a government program to relieve indebted Brazilians facing billions of dollars in consumer loans. And just days before the first round of voting, he banned online betting, which has accelerated Brazil’s spiraling personal debt crisis.

This is not the first time Lula faced an uphill climb — and staged a spectacular turnaround. Less than a decade ago, he was sitting in a prison cell, serving a 12-year sentence over a corruption scandal that appeared to have ended his political career.

But his convictions were annulled by the Supreme Court in 2021 amid evidence that the judge, prosecutors and the police had colluded to put him behind bars. This freed Lula to run against the elder Bolsonaro in 2022, a race he won in a huge political comeback.

Lula emerged on the political stage in the 1970s, making his name as a union leader on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. As president between 2003 and 2010, Lula, a former metalworker with a fifth grade education, created generous social programs that helped some 20 million Brazilians climb out of poverty.

On the world stage, he has elevated Brazil to a leader on issues such as poverty, hunger and climate change, in part through his efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest. A skilled diplomat, Lula has also cemented Brazil’s reputation abroad as an important emerging power in the Global South.

When he left office in 2010, Lula’s approval ratings topped 80%. But the scandal that landed him in prison tarnished his reputation with a large slice of Brazil’s population, who still link him and his political party to corruption. Even after returning to the presidency, Lula has struggled to regain the trust of many voters.

Now, a new corruption scandal embroiling much of Brazil’s political and judicial elite, including Bolsonaro himself, is adding to the fatigue many Brazilians feel toward their political leaders. With the crisis unfolding on Lula’s watch, it has further dampened enthusiasm around his candidacy.

Ultimately, Brazilians appeared to have heeded Lula’s warning about a return of the Bolsonaros to power, choosing to give the leftist another term in office. This is the first time that Brazilians have handed a fourth term to a president.

Yet, even though Lula was able to secure another victory, he will face the daunting task of governing a bitterly divided nation and navigating a legislative branch that has swung sharply to the right and will look to defy him at every turn.

“It still marks, in a sense, the decline of a certain kind of leftism,” Rocha said.