Lula’s Comeback Victory Halts the Blue Tide in Brazil

[Financial News] The “Blue Tide”—a run of conservative and right-wing forces taking power across Latin America, including in Argentina and Chile—has been halted in Brazil. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (81), the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) candidate, won 51.79% of the vote in the presidential runoff on the 25th (local time), securing a fourth term overall.
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court declared Lula’s election victory confirmed after the count was completed that day, with the incumbent president receiving 51.79% of the vote and defeating Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who received 48.21%. The margin was 4.4 million votes, or 3.6 percentage points.
Senator Bolsonaro immediately signaled that he would not accept the result, raising the prospect of turmoil and repercussions in Brazil’s political landscape. Bolsonaro said, “(The court) changed the rules in the middle of the game,” adding, “I cannot accept the election results. I will seek to have them annulled.” As grounds for rejecting the result, he cited the Federal Supreme Court’s decision to extend voting hours by two hours—from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.—because of bad weather.
The Federal Supreme Court had extended voting hours that day in response to a request from Lula’s side. Bolsonaro argued that the decision undermined fairness, pointing out that Justice Cristiano Zanin, who made the ruling, had previously served as President Lula’s lawyer.
Meanwhile, President Lula took aim at the United States in his victory speech, saying, “Brazil is no one’s backyard.”
He has pursued a policy of strengthening ties with developing countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere, moving away from a US-centered international order. Lula’s challenge will be to avoid friction with the administration of US President Donald Trump while advancing this balanced diplomacy centered on the Global South.
The Trump administration’s security strategies—including the “Donroe Doctrine,” which seeks to curb China’s expanding influence in South America, including its deepening ties with Brazil, and to maximize US hegemony by tightening control over the Western Hemisphere—will face setbacks.
The United States had sought, with the help of conservative governments, to reshape Brazil’s advanced strategic security sectors—including 5G and 6G communications, artificial intelligence (AI) and defense technology—along a pro-Western, US-centered line. Since Trump began his second term, the Latin American right’s winning streak has stopped at Brazil. The United States had secured pledges from conservative candidates to shift the center of gravity of foreign and economic policy from China to the US, and to join the Shield of the Americas, a US-led regional anti-crime alliance.
Lula, who began working in a factory as a boy, was elected in 2002 as Brazil’s first president from the working class and was reelected in 2006. In 2022, he defeated then-President Jair Bolsonaro to secure a third term. In this election, he defeated Flávio, the son of former President Bolsonaro, to win a fourth term.

[email protected] Lee Seok-woo, International Affairs Specialist Reporter