Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.
With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.
Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.
Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.
A couple of things to understand about Brazilian elections:
- Voting is mandatory for all citizens aged 18-70, though failing to vote nets you a 4 BRL fine (less than a dollar)[1]
- Every Brazilian citizen has an ID with photo (I’ve only recently learned that USA doesn’t have something like a nationwide ID);
- Election happens on a sunday and people who have to work on said day can ask to leave for 2 hours in order to vote;
- Voting is standardized and organized at a federal level, even for municipal voting. The electoral tribunals exist solely for dealing with elections;
- The majority of funds spent on campaigns come from the electoral fund, which is distributed to parties according to how many elected deputies, senators and governors they have (a great way to ensure big parties stay rich and well funded). Up until 2014, corporations could still donate to campaigns. After that, only citizens may donate and only up to 10% of their earnings.
- The electronic urns are audited before and after elections[2], they are completely offline and save votes to an internal disk. Since their inception, despite many claims, no fault or fraud has ever been found on the hardware or software. Even fucking bozo and his flunkies couldn’t find any security breach back in 2022, while he was in power.
- With how urns are distributed, it’s easy to account if the total amount of registered votes is equal to the amount of voters that showed up. This first verification is done once voting time is over by the 4 poll workers that care for each urn/section.
- Voters have to do both ID and biometric verification (fingerprint) before voting
- No cell phones or kids go in the booth with you (take a wild guess why “no kids”)
I understand people who would rather have it be non mandatory, but think about a criminal group ensuring only “their people” go out to vote. With optional voting, it gets easier for them to ensure victory. This would be a real situation in many cities in Brazil, where said criminal groups already do everything in their power to ensure “their guys” get elected. ↩︎
This isn’t a “we self audited ourselves” situation, in case you’re wondering. Universities, Federal Police, Army and several other entities, public and private, can take part in the audit ↩︎
Crazy how you can win by standing for something instead of twerking for fascists. Can’t relate due to being American.
Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled
What a little bitch.
4.4 million votes. No recount is going to fix that.
I have no idea what the situation is like on the ground, but since we’re talking about South America and the U.S. has Trump as president: A recount, no… but maybe a military coup.
Brazil is much more capable to resist a US attack than Venezuela was
Let’s hope you’re right about that. I’m not so much worried about the U.S. itself as I am about the possibility that Bolsonaro Jr. might attempt a coup, just like his father… if about 50% of voters supported the autocrats, even a small amount of U.S. interference would be enough.
Bolsonaro jr. is about to end his term as senator. He doesn’t have anything close to his father to attempt a coup. All he can do is cry. He’s just turned in his passport by court order because he’s under investigation on suspicion of committing several crimes.
Heaven forbid!
Right? That’s a lot of votes, there’s no doubt he lost.
Probably all illegal immigrants. Does Brazil even have 4 million citizens?
/s
I guess that’s why he’s trying to have it annulled?
Also what a fuckin surprise /s
Yes, he was, thankfully, removed.
Good
“Womp womp”
TIL Brazil has developed Yttrium deposits and industry. China does too and is restricting exports.
isnt yttrium the one element that is known for having basically 0 uses
Off the top of my head, it’s used in high temperature superconductors.
The leading countries for these reserves included Australia, Brazil, China, India, and the United States
and from the same article:
Ferrite mat’l for circuit components… YAG lasers… Those are off the top of my head… Yes, there are uses.
Here is an example of how a political propagandist uses a simple troll to steer a conversation away from useful topics. Pay attention.
Notice how nobody is replying to Maeve’s observations? About some plausible pretexts that the neocons might use to convince Trump to authorise a US invasion of Brazil, even if it would be politically disastrous for him?
Ooo yes, Mr President, look at all the shiny yttrium! It will all be yours! China wants it, are you gonna let em have it?
Instead, all the conversational energy was used to correct an intentionally absurd statement.
No?
YSZ is used in fuel cells and sensors.
Like your comment?
You could have just googled it.
plus they won’t be using brazilian reserves for their shitty wars for now. fuck bolsonaro and fuck the empire!
Well done, Brazil.
Why is it always the right wingers that are the worst losers?
Right wing philosophy is at it’s core a lie. Any validity in the process threatens their ability to accumulate and consolidate power. So they must seek to make the process seem invalid at every turn.
If they possessed the ability to be mature they wouldn’t be right wingers in the first place.
It’s the other way around. Right wing politics and especially fascism are simply an extension of whining and stomping feet. Once you notice the links between the two they are impossible to unsee.
Right wing philosophy boils down to “obey me or else”.
The origin of the words left and right in a political context comes from the French Revolution. Specifically from the events of the Estates General, and the writing of the failed constitution of 1789.
The first vote, “Should the Monarch have an absolute veto over laws passed?” was determined by seating. Those in favor (the nobility and clergy from the richer areas) sat to the right of the speaker’s podium, those opposed (people who wanted democracy, which included the some of the country nobles, country clergy, and the near entirety of the third estate) sat to the left.
This pattern repeated on most questions, those who supported monarchy sat to the right, democracy to the left. The newspapers, which were recently completely freed of censorship, started using left and right as shorthand for the two sides.
The philosophers then stepped in. Tomas Paine and Edmund Burke for two English language examples. Paine actually traveled to France and served in the legislature, despite not speaking French. Edmund Burke stayed in England and wrote about how the masses needed to be controlled by their betters, who should be selected not by birth, but by wealth. Burke was not a noble, but he was rich.
Edmund Burke is the father of Conservatism. He was somewhat explicit that the thing he wanted to conserve, was power over others. Later writers have obfuscated things a bit, but if you look, the message is the same.
So, when a right-winger loses, it’s someone who really wants unchecked control over others being told to fuck off.
Left and right thinking derive from religious context dating back even before Judaism. Left represents living with free will as professed in esoteric ideologies while right represents ideologies professing living under ethical codes. Even within the occult ideologies there is left-hand path and right-hand path. Although, in that context left-hand path represents the worst of all evil.
Yeah, a lot of the ancient occult wisdom was made up in the last couple of centuries. Con artists saturate that space, or rather, they created that space.
But Left and Right in a political context is directly traceable to the French Revolution and the events of 1789, and is well documented because of the removal of censorship on newspapers that I had mentioned.
Such condescension and misrepresentation of my message.
Left and right handed in context of spirituality dates to tantric origins. Vāmācāra and Dakṣiṇācāra are Sanskrit defining those very terms. I happen to know this based on my years of studies. While it was later reused by occultists in the late 1800s it appears the same is true during the late 1700s as well.
When researching maybe learn to invest your time in research rather than performing a 60 second internet search only to wind up on Wikipedia. Better to actually educate yourself, and others, on scholarly works rather than take the easy path of a charlatan to appear intelligent on a forum.
I like to imagine the reaction of different people being told “no.” Like someone who is trying to rob you versus someone who is trying to help you. It’s fury versus disappointment.
Brazil and Serbia. Good on them. America, you’re up. I would include Israel but even the best possible government there fucking sucks balls.
if only we got some of this in Hong Kong…
🇧🇷 🇧🇷 🇧🇷
brasil campeão porra
🇧🇷
81 year old? Can’t a generation just fucking die already?
Being a fascist is bad enough, being an incompetent fascist is more than bad enough.
Now being an incompetent fascist that get’s humiliated against someone as old as trump is downright sad.Should have seen him at the debate. He was running circles around Bolsonaro, at thirty years his junior.
I agree but still better than a Trump aligned person winning. Anyone in that pool is like voting for the end times. Basically authoritarian types, anything must be better than them, even an old dude.Ill add that I know almost nothing except who Trump wanted to win and they’re bitching about results, the Trump way, oh also think the loser vamoosed recently, to the well known sanctuary of the United States. Oh good job we know how much they enjoy immigrants…he has money? Oh pardon my faux pas.
Good lol
I’d prefer it if someone other than Lula could keep the fascists out of power. Still, it bought Brazil a few more years.
Bolsonaro still has a backup plan that he has been crafting for a long time.
spoiler
A ligature made of napkins that’s strong enough to support his bodyweight.
I believe there was cheating; the whole business about the late closing of polling station, along with so many other things, was highly suspicious. Lula also proved to be a piece of shit during his previous terms; on top of that, he’s pro-China, pro-North Korea, pro-Russia, and pro-Chavismo, just a total disaster.
But Bolsonaro should never, ever be (re)elected. His term from 2019 to 2023 was abysmal, and his handling of Covid was like a horror movie. The most sensible thing would have been to choose a third, more rational, sensible and nuanced option, but damn, it seems people just don’t know how to vote, whether here in Latin America or pretty much anywhere else in the world.
Lol both candidates asked for the polls to be opened longer. One was a little shit about it afterwards and demanded annullment.
Do you have any reason to believe there was cheating other than “I don’t like the guy”?
But Bolsonaro should never, ever be (re)elected. His term from 2019 to 2023 was abysmal, and his handling of Covid was like a horror movie.
You always get the most informed takes from the most knowledgable people. In this case, he doesn’t know that these are two different Bolsonaros. Jair Bolsanaro was the previous president. Flavio Bolsonaro is his son and the person that just lost.
Oh, sorry, I just had a shortcircuit.
Still, Flavio shouldn’t never, EVER, be elected too. Being son of Jair and defending (and being defended by) Trump is not a good presentation card.
Thanks for the catch!
The cheating happened with Meta favouring Bolsonaro campaign, and local polititians actively trying to stop people from voting by cutting public transportation on voting day. Bolsonaro accused Lula of corruption, so Lula opened his bank and telephone accounts publicly while Bolsonaro refused to do the same to prove himself clean. Bolsonaro carved his rejection rate himself among anyone with open eyes.
and local polititians actively trying to stop people from voting by cutting public transportation on voting day
Also, both candidates asked for the time extension.
