Robert Muggah and Ilona Szabó de Carvalho
Brazil’s renewed democratic confidence must now be matched by institutional and structural reforms and a willingness to build coalitions beyond the left. Recent democratic outcomes in Hungary and Serbia offer useful lessons.
SÃO PAOLO—Until President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva staged a remarkable comeback to win re-election, no Brazilian presidential candidate had overturned a first-round defeat in a runoff. Lula did so with nearly 52% of the vote, against Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48%. More than 128 million Brazilians turned out—nearly three million more than in the first round.