As congratulations and accusations of fraud alike color online discourse, Brazil recognizes its new president-elect.

From Breitbart. The top electoral authority in Brazil announced on Sunday evening that 77-year-old hardline socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, once convicted and sentenced to over two decades in prison for alleged corruption, had won this year’s presidential election against incumbent conservative Jair Bolsonaro.

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In his first words as president-elect for a third term, Lula vowed to “reconstruct the very soul of this nation” away from the small government, pro-freedom ideals of the Bolsonaro administration.

Little more than a percentage point separated Lula, who served as president previously from 2003 to 2011, from Bolsonaro, as of 10 p.m. ET, representing about 2 million votes in a nation of 214 million people. National newspaper of record O Globo described the results as the closest election since 1989, when Lula narrowly lost to Fernando Collor de Mello, who was impeached and ousted from office over corruption allegations in 1992. Collor later supported the impeachment ouster of Lula’s protege, Dilma Rousseff, in 2016, also prompted by corruption allegations – kicking off the series of events that ultimately led to Bolsonaro’s 2018 victory. …

Lula’s high turnout in the northeast – the country’s poorest region and his traditional stronghold, made it possible to defeat Bolsonaro despite the conservative triumphing in the nation’s largest metropolises of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro enjoyed his highest support in the Venezuelan border region of Roraima, now heavily populated with socialist refugees, and in the inland state of Rondonia. …

Bolsonaro has yet to comment publicly; rumors in major Brazilian newspapers claim that he is rejecting requests to visit or speak with him. Brazilian news network Jovem Pan reported that sources within Brazil’s presidential palace “did not have an expectation” that Bolsonaro would speak on Sunday. Lula notably did not mention receiving any concession call from Bolsonaro in his victory speech. …

Prior to Lula’s victory, leftists began to complain of alleged attempts by conservatives and police officers to block buses full of Lula supporters from reaching their voting stations.

Leftist American President Joe Biden was among the first to congratulate Lula on his reported victory on Sunday. Biden, as a candidate in 2020, had vowed to destroy the Brazilian economy as a presidential candidate if Bolsonaro did not accept an unspecified $20-billion environmental investment, prompting Bolsonaro to later threaten to go to war with the United States. Their relationship never recovered.

‘I send my congratulations to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on his election to be the next president of Brazil following free, fair, and credible elections,” Biden said in a statement. “I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead.”

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(Excerpt from Breitbart. Photo Credit: Canva)