Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been declared the winner of Brazil’s presidential election by a narrow margin, however, Africa Today News, New York reports that with incumbent Jair Bolsonaro still yet to concede defeat there were concerns the far-right contender might challenge the result.
According to information made public by the country’s election authority, Lula managed to secure 50.8 percent of the vote compared with 49.2 percent for his opponent, 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.’
Africa Today News, New York gathered that throughout the first half of the vote count, Bolsonaro had been leading 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.
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People in Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema neighbourhood could be heard shouting, “It turned!”
“He’s the best for the poor, especially in the countryside,” said retired government worker Luiz Carlos Gomes, 65, who comes from Maranhao state in the poor northeast region. “We were always starving before him.”
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.
It is a tradition in Brazil for the losing candidate to speak first and accept the election loss, but hours after the authorities had named Lula the winner, Bolsonaro had made no public statement on the outcome.