Trump ally Bolsonaro threatens legal action after losing election to Lula

The Brazilian presidential elections have ended in a tight race that saw Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva re-elected in a historic win.

Known widely as Lula, the left-wing Workers’ Party candidate defeated Flávio Bolsonaro with 51.79% of the vote.

At 80 years old, Lula has become the first president in Brazil to win a fourth term and will remain in office until 2030.

Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, trailed in the polls by around 4million votes and has called for the election to be ‘annulled’.

‘It is impossible to recognise the election result given how these events unfolded,’ he told supporters in Brasilia, according to CNN.

‘We will take legal action. We will ask for this election to be annulled.’

Lula had finished second in the first round but managed to turn things around after a high voter turnout and additional campaigning.

No Brazilian president has ever won after losing in the first round since the return of direct presidential elections in 1989.

Turnout was a sore spot at this year’s election after both candidates complained about voters struggling to get to the polls.

Bolsonaro cited adverse weather conditions in Southern Brazil while Lula complained of ‘incidents’ impacting buses to polling stations in several states.

Ultimately, voting time was extended by two hours, although the decision made by the Supreme Court came right as polls closed and some stations were unable to reopen.

After the verdict was announced, Bolsonaro claimed the ‘rules of the game were changed’ and called the decision a ‘tragedy’. Both he and Lula’s teams had asked for the extension.

In 2022, Bolsonaro’s father – who was elected in 2018 – also lost to Lula and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempting to overthrow election results.

Addressing supporters in Sao Paolo, Lula thanked those who voted, which he said made it possible to recover from his first-round defeat.

‘Long live democracy,’ he said after the national anthem played, adding: ‘this, my fourth term, will be the best of any president in the history of this country’.

‘It will be the one in which I listen most to the Brazilian people.’

Lula thanked young voters who ‘took to the streets to defend democracy’, after focusing his campaign on tackling the cost of living, crime and climate.

This marks Lula’s fourth term as president, having previously been in power from 2003 to 2010, then was elected again in 2022.

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