Description: Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva managed to oust leading right – wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential runoff. After the first voting round, Lula trailed Bolsonaro by almost 2.2 million votes. He managed to stage an election comeback by reconstructing his campaign and appealing to young, undecided Brazilians. Precedentially, Brazil’s Supreme Court extended the runoff vote by almost two hours on the requests from both candidates which raised concerns over the legitimacy of the voting procedures. Bolsonaro, the son of the jailed former presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, didn’t recognize the election result and claimed he would fight the result through the legal system. Lula managed to secure 51.79% of the votes compared to Bolsonaro’s 48.21%, or a difference of more than 4.4 million votes. In his fourth presidential term Lula will face significant challenges. Congress and Senate houses in Brazil are majority – led by Bolsonaro’s Liberal party while increased debt, high interest rates and inflation as well as lackluster political reforms also pose mounting challenges to his presidency.
Impact: Lula is highly likely faced with stiff political opposition to introduce new debt, investment and business reforms that could move Brazil’s stagnant economy upward. The Liberal party’s control of the Congress and Senate likely poses a major challenge for passing reform bills and introducing debt relief measures. In terms of energy development, Lula is likely to retain his environmental protection policies while introducing progressive measures for exploration of rare earth minerals and oil deposits. On the foreign policy front, Lula is likely to hold a strong opposition stance towards the Trump administration and reinforce Brazil’s role in the BRICS alliance, cultivating closer ties with China and Russia. Bolsonaro’s pledges to challenge the election results legally is highly unlikely to succeed with Brazil remaining with a left – leaning government in the next four years.