Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been re-elected President of Brazil, winning the second round of the presidential election with 51.75% of the vote, according to official electoral results. The victory marks a dramatic reversal from the first round, in which the Workers’ Party (PT) candidate had trailed his rival, Flávio Bolsonaro.

Lula da Silva secured 63,388,523 votes against Flávio Bolsonaro’s 59,099,143, with 98.76% of polling stations counted, according to Lusa news agency.

The former trade union leader and left-wing PT chief managed to overturn a deficit of more than two million votes recorded in the first round.

In that earlier stage, right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro had obtained 47.03% of valid votes against Lula da Silva’s 45.16%, a gap of 2,224,965 votes. Since the introduction of the two-round system in Brazilian presidential elections in 1989, no candidate who had finished second in the first round had ever gone on to win the run-off.

More than 158.7 million voters were registered to cast ballots at approximately 564,000 electronic voting machines distributed across 5,571 Brazilian cities, as well as 186 cities abroad, including Lisbon, Porto, and Faro.

Congressional Leaders Acknowledge Victory and Call for Reconciliation

The presidents of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre, and of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta, acknowledged Lula da Silva’s victory and defended the integrity of the electoral process, despite the defeated candidate’s refusal to concede. The two officials, both from centre-right parties, congratulated Lula at a joint press conference held shortly after Flávio Bolsonaro declared it was ‘impossible’ for him to recognise the results.

Alcolumbre described the PT leader’s victory as ‘decisive’, highlighting the margin of more than four million votes. He also stated that the electronic voting machines — in use for decades and frequently criticised by far-right quarters — represent a ‘heritage’ of Brazilian democracy.

The Senate president argued that Congress should now focus on ‘pacifying’ the country, noting that ‘a divided country is good for neither the Brazilian people nor its institutions.’ Along similar lines, Hugo Motta said democracy is ‘sovereign’ and that the Brazilian people had made their choice through the ballot box.

In his victory speech, Lula said he intends to work with Congress to pass government legislation, despite the strengthening of right-wing parties in both chambers of parliament.

The relationship between the President and congressional leaders has been marked by tensions and periods of rapprochement over the past two years.

On the eve of the election, however, a political realignment occurred that contributed to the passage, two weeks ago, of a constitutional reform aimed at reducing the working week from six to five days and establishing two days of rest. The approval of the measure — one of Lula’s priorities — gave fresh momentum to the President’s campaign at a moment when he was struggling to close the gap opened in the first round.