Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil’s president

[superadmin]

• Brazil’s electoral authority said Sunday that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Worker’s Party defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the country’s next president.
  
• It is a stunning return to power for da Silva, 77, whose 2018 imprisonment over a corruption scandal sidelined him from that year’s election, paving the way for then-candidate Bolsonaro’s win and four years of far-right politics.
  
• His victory marks the first time since Brazil’s 1985 return to democracy that the sitting president has failed to win reelection. His inauguration is scheduled to take place on Jan. 1.
  

Brazil’s electoral authority said Sunday that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Worker’s Party defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the country’s next president.

With 98.8% of the votes tallied in the runoff vote, da Silva had 50.8% and Bolsonaro 49.2%, and the election authority said da Silva’s victory was a mathematical certainty.

Da Silva — the country’s former president from 2003-2010 — has promised to restore the country’s more prosperous past, yet faces faces headwinds in a polarized society.

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