Brazil’s former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sealed an astonishing political comeback, beating the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, in one of the most significant and bruising elections in the country’s history.
With 99.97% of votes counted, Silva, a former factory worker who became Brazil’s first working-class president exactly 20 years ago, had secured 50.9% of the vote. Bolsonaro, a firebrand who was elected in 2018, received 49.10%. Addressing journalists at a hotel in São Paulo, Lula vowed to reunify the country after a toxic race for power that has profoundly divided one of the world’s largest democracies.