Lula Wins Re-election in Brazil, Completing a Remarkable Comeback at 80

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won re-election as president of Brazil, reversing a first-round defeat within three weeks. He beat Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, in Sunday's run-off. The result runs against a trend of victories in Latin America for right-wing leaders whose policies resemble those of US President Donald Trump.

Lula is 80 and turns 81 on Tuesday. He first won the presidency in 2002 on his fourth attempt, becoming Brazil's first leftist leader in nearly half a century. He was born into a poor, illiterate peasant family, worked as a peanut seller and shoe-shine boy as a child, and learned to read at 10. He later trained as a metalworker and lost the little finger of his left hand in an accident in the 1960s.

Trade union activism pulled him into politics. He was elected head of the 100,000-strong Metalworkers' Union in 1975 and helped turn government-friendly unions into a powerful independent movement. In 1980 he co-founded the Workers' Party, the first major socialist party in Brazil's history. It gradually swapped its revolutionary aims for a more pragmatic, social democratic platform.

In his first two terms, from January 2003 to December 2010, Lula put billions of dollars into social programmes. He raised the minimum wage well above inflation and expanded the Bolsa Familia family grant scheme, which helped some 44 million people. Critics say the scheme did not tackle structural causes of poverty such as poor education. He left office with an 83% approval rating, after the longest period of economic growth in three decades. He was later diagnosed with throat cancer and was declared cured in 2012.

His fortunes then turned. Under his chosen successor, progress stalled, recession followed, and the Operation Car Wash corruption investigation shook the country. In 2017 Lula was convicted of accepting a beachside flat as a bribe from the engineering firm OAS, and the sentence was raised on appeal to 12 years. He was also given 12 years and 11 months for corruption and money laundering linked to improvements to a country house. He has always said the accusations were politically motivated. He was freed in 2019 after a Supreme Court ruling that his jailing came before all appeals were exhausted, and the convictions were annulled in 2021. That allowed him to beat Jair Bolsonaro in 2022.

Lula said on returning to office in 2023 that it would be his last term, yet his party backed him again this year. Even supporters concede he achieved more in his first two terms. Environmentalists have criticised his backing for exploratory offshore oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon. He says he still intends to phase out fossil fuels and that oil revenue will help fund the move to clean energy. His government points to satellite data showing the area deforested in the first half of 2026 was the lowest in a decade.

Relations with Trump have been uneven. Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, citing the coup trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence. Lula accused him of foreign interference and said "he's not emperor of the world". Ties improved after a White House meeting in May, when Trump called Lula "dynamic" and Lula said he was "very satisfied". The US imposed 25% tariffs on most Brazilian goods in July. The two still differ on crime and especially trade, and Lula has said that "Brazil does not fit into anyone's backyard".

Abroad, Lula has criticised the veto power held by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, saying it excludes nations such as Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, as well as African countries. Brazil is an active member of the Brics group with Russia, India, China and South Africa, which Lula sees as an emerging counterweight to the West. He defends his ties with Russia and China, and his decision to keep buying Russian oil while Russia wages war in Ukraine.