Leftist Lula reclaims Brazilian presidency

In a tight presidential election Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, received 50.9 percent of the vote over incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro’s 49.1 percent. Bolsonaro has not given a concession speech and had mentioned the possibility of corruption during his campaign. This is the country’s closest election since it returned to democracy in 1985 and the first time a sitting president did not win reelection. The race had a religious aspect, as Bolsonaro rallied with evangelical Christians and Lula wrote an open letter to evangelicals promising to respect religious freedoms. 

Who is Lula? Lula was president from 2003 to 2010 and ran again in 2018 before imprisonment took him out of the race. A judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison on corruption charges and money laundering charges and an appeals court upheld the ruling. But the country’s Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that defendants can remain free until they have exhausted all possible appeals, allowing Lula to walk free. The appeals process can take years in Brazil, sometimes outlasting the statute of limitations. Lula said the charges were politically motivated. 

Dig deeper: Read Emma Freire’s report in World Tour on Brazil’s election.