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Lula’s Victory! Bolsonaro’s Defeat! What’s Next for Brazil?

A leading Brazil scholar predicts that Trump will continue to meddle in Brazilian politics.

On October 25, Brazil’s incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won a momentous, come-from-behind victory over the candidate of authoritarianism, Flávio Bolsonaro. The dramatic electoral outcome has generated a wave of hope in Brazil and beyond; Lula’s win is widely perceived as a rebuke to the march of ultraconservative forces throughout Latin America and to the Trump administration’s flagrant attempts to bolster Bolsonaro and assert US control over Brazil’s political and economic future. Referencing US interference, Lula declared in his acceptance speech that his victory demonstrates that “this country does not accept being anybody’s backyard.”

Flávio is the 45-year-old son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted of plotting a coup to stay in power when he lost the presidency to Lula four years ago. Like his father, Flávio has refused to concede his loss. Under investigation for corruption and money laundering, this week he fled Brazil and, on Trump’s order, was allowed free passage into the United States. Hoping for US support to install him in power, Bolsonaro promptly declared himself “president-elect” of Brazil, even though he lost the election by over 4 million votes. The mainstream Brazilian media has accused Bolsonaro of “coup-mongering.”

To understand the implications of these dramatic events, The Nation placed a call to one of the leading international experts on Brazil, Brown University professor emeritus James Green, in São Paulo. This, with a bit of editing for clarity, is what he told us.

The Nation: Lula’s win is being heralded as historic. How do you interpret this unexpected and extraordinary victory for the first Brazilian to be elected president for a fourth time?

James Green: It is historic. I think it solidifies Lula as the greatest politician in Brazilian history. But there are reasons for this historic victory.

It is important to note that the first round of voting on October 4 took place amid one of the biggest corruption scandals in Brazilian history—the discovery that the head of a major bank, Banco Master, was bribing numerous Brazilians in the political world, including members of the Supreme Court. [Bolsonaro himself has been implicated in this scandal.] This caused tremendous distraction from the electoral process, and Lula’s campaign was quite lackluster; consequently, he lost the first round of voting by 1.9 points to Bolsonaro, leading to the runoff election on October 25.

After the October 4 vote, Lula’s campaign was in shock for a day, and then they turned it around. In less than three........

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