Brazil has spoken. Lula wins.
STATEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN LEFT
This victory belongs to the millions of workers, young people and students, the urban peripheries and farmers, women, LGBTQI+ community, black community, indigenous people who came out in historic numbers. What we witnessed in these final weeks has no precedent in Brazilian democratic history since the 1980s, a mass mobilisation of extraordinary force, reaching 12 million people directly. They organised. They believed. They won.
This is the first defeat of Trumpism in Latin America in this electoral cycle. A blow to the global far right, to foreign interference, to the digital war waged by platforms exposed for actively working against Lula. The Brazilian people said NO, and their NO prevailed.
But this victory did not come easy, and what happened today must be named clearly.
Even on election day, Bolsonarist mayors in São Paulo, Salvador and other cities slashed up to 40% of bus fleets to prevent working-class voters from reaching the polls. Lula’s campaign took it to the Supreme Court and won a two-hour extension, but most stations had already closed. The sabotage was real. The evidence is there. And yet the people came anyway, in numbers that overcame even that.
The far right will not accept this quietly. They never have. The battle for Brazilian democracy does not end tonight. It continues.
From the European Left: we celebrate this historic victory with the Brazilian people and all the democratic, progressive forces who fought for it. We stand in solidarity, today and in every struggle ahead.
Fascism does not have the last word. The people do.