Lula’s triumph |
LUIZ Inácio da Silva turned 81 yesterday with much more than a birthday to celebrate. Two days earlier, the man known as Lula pulled off a remarkable triumph, converting a deficit in the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections into a nearly 4m lead in the second round, thereby securing an unprecedented fourth term.
The carnivalesque eruption of joy across much of Brazil was accompanied by an almost global sigh of relief. Flávio Bolsonaro’s first-round advantage compounded the fear of a candidate strongly favoured by the Trump and Netanyahu administrations pursuing his father’s fascistic agenda with even greater fervour. The would-be dynasty’s paterfamilias, Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence for trying to instigate a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula. On the eve of last Sunday’s vote, Reuters reported that US State Department officials had informed American diplomats in Brasilia that the aim was to restore Bolsonaro Sr to power.
The extent to which that revelation might have fired up voters is open to conjecture, although previous attempts by Washington to rattle the Lula administration backfired, bolstering his popularity. More consequentially, the Lula campaign changed tack after the first round,........