Leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva surprised the world on Sunday by winning re-election — and few were more stunned than South Florida’s large Brazilian diaspora, which for the past decade has been one of the most stalwart supporters of the conservative Bolsonarista movement Lula defeated.
Lula’s challenger, right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro — the son of former right-wing President and convicted coup plotter Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula beat in 2022 — was widely favored to win the runoff election after taking the first round earlier this month.
But the 80-year-old Lula, of Brazil's liberal Workers Party (PT) won decisively, 52% to 48%, to secure his fourth presidential term. (He served two other consecutive terms from 2003 to 2011.)
Like most Brazilian expats in South Florida, payment services executive Ronald Wielselberg, of Aventura, a Rio de Janeiro native, voted for Bolsonaro. largely because of Lula’s left-wing economic policies, which critics warn have put Brazil in a fiscal hole, and what he calls Lula's flirtations with anti-semitism.
But Wieselberg said he understands that Bolsonaro’s reputation for scandals likely pushed even many conservative voters away.
“I voted for Bolsonaro tampando meu nariz, I mean, holding my nose," Wieselberg told WLRN.
"Lots of Brazilians hate Lula, but they were more afraid of the, uh, more unknown crazy guy who is involved in all those shady deals.”
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Fernanda Cirino, publisher of the Portuguese-language Gazeta News in Deerfield Beach, credited Lula's more polished debate performances as a key factor in overtaking Bolsonaro's advantage.
But Cirino says Bolsonarismo — especially Bolsonaro's Liberal Party, which took a majority of seats in Brazil's Congress this month — remains a political arbiter.
“Many Brazilians here are disappointed with the results, especially in South Florida," said Cirino.
"But I don’t think this is the end of the Bolsonaro movement. Flávio Bolsonaro received almost half the votes in Brazil.”
A fifth of the Brazilian diaspora in the U.S. live in South Florida.
A big concern now is Bolsonaro's refusal so far to concede Lula's victory — and his call to annul Sunday's results. It's an ominous echo of his father's refusal to accept defeat in 2022, which helped provoke his supporters to rampage through the capital Brasília, on Jan. 8, 2023, and damage federal buildings while calling for the military to step in and reverse the election results.
Bolsonarismo's critics claim the violence was an imitation of the insurrection hundreds President Donald Trump's loyalists staged in the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, after he refused to accept his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Lula, a frequent Trump critic, received congratulations from conservative as well as liberal world leaders, including right-wing Colombian President Abelardo De la Espriella. But Trump, a close ally of Jair Bolsonaro, suggested Monday, without evidence, that Lula’s reelection was “rigged.”
“I thought it had a very bad look, the way it was tabulated,” Trump told reporters.
Last year, Jair Bolsonaro was convicted for taking part in a plot to stage the coup his supporters clamored for. He is currently serving a 27-year term under house arrest.
Lula's win is a significant blow to Trump's efforts to see more right-wing leaders aligned with his hemispheric agenda, like De la Espriella and Argentine President Javier Milei, take power in Latin America.
