SAO PAULO: Brazilians flooded the polls on Sunday, 30 October, to elect a new president in what turned out to be an extremely close runoff competition between two of the biggest names in Brazilian politics eyeing drastically different versions of Brazil’s future.
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva clinched Brazil's top job Sunday after besting incumbent Jair Bolsonaro with 50.90% of the vote, figures released by the country's election authority confirmed.
With 99.96% of the ballots counted, Bolsonaro gained 49.10%. The ouster marks the end of a politically heightened period for Brazil as Bolsonaro gained widespread attention for his accelerated destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the government's failure to effectively implement preventative Covid-19 measures such as masking practices. Brazil documented nearly 700,000 Covid-related deaths.
Earlier, a congressional inquiry recommended Bolsonaro be charged with nine offenses, including charlatanism and crimes against humanity, for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is unclear if those charges will be handed down once Bolsonaro passes the presidency to da Silva.
The elected president had more than 60.2 million votes, a record in the history of Brazilian democracy. He will begin his third presidential term.
Da Silva responded to the winning results by sharing an image of his hand over the Brazilian flag, captioned "democracy."
The Sunday results mark the latest South American country to oust a conservative leader in favor of electing a leftist president on the continent. Earlier, similar moves were made by Colombia, Chile and Honduras.
Mainstream polling firms all had Lula pegged for a 4-7 point win over Bolsonaro, but the race remained painfully close over the course of the evening, with Brazilian media unofficially calling the election in favor of da Silva just before 7 pm EST, with less than 99% of the votes accounted for.
Reports indicate that U.S. President Joe Biden plans to send U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Brazil in the coming days to reinforce U.S. support for a peaceful transition. It is yet unclear if da Silva plans to accept support from the U.S. government.
Shortly after the election was called, Biden issued his congratulations for da Silva, noting in a White House-released statement that he "looks forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead." The American leader added that he believed the election process to have been "free, fair and credible."
(SOURCE: Sputnik)
