Congratulations to Comrade Lula da Silva and the Brazilian People on a Historic Re-election

Socialist and Progressive World extends its warmest and most fraternal congratulations to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the left-wing President of Brazil, the Workers' Party and the people of Brazil on his extraordinary re-election. According to the Superior Electoral Court's final count, Lula won the runoff of 25 October 2026 with 51.76% of the vote against 48.24% for the far-right Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, securing a record fourth presidential term. No candidate who trailed in the first round had ever before won a Brazilian runoff. Lula achieved it after Flávio Bolsonaro won the first round on 4 October by 47.03% to 45.16%. This victory belongs to the workers, the landless, the Black and Indigenous poor, and the women of the periphery, who turned a deficit into triumph against capital, the media oligopolies and the reactionary alliance of agribusiness and the evangelical right.

The road to this moment was long. In 2018 the lawfare of Operation Car Wash, driven by Judge Sérgio Moro, jailed Lula for 580 days and barred him from a race he was leading, clearing the way for Jair Bolsonaro. The convictions were later annulled, but the damage had been done, and the episode showed how a nominally neutral judiciary can serve the interests of a right-wing ruling class. Lula's narrow win in 2022 was followed by the fascist riots of 8 January 2023 in Brasília. Jair Bolsonaro was later convicted for plotting a coup, and Washington then punished Brazil with punitive tariffs, which showed how imperialism shields its allies. Flávio Bolsonaro, the convicted man's son, was the vehicle for a movement that has not renounced its authoritarian project.

Election day itself was turbulent. Polls were extended and the count was halted during the day, which was unsettling in a country where the far right has long attacked the electronic voting system. We therefore call on democrats everywhere to stay vigilant. A movement that spent years sowing doubt about the ballot box will not disappear because it lost a count.

The ramifications reach well beyond Brazil. Bloomberg described the result as a brake on the rightward shift across Latin America. A fourth term for a left-wing President strengthens the case for regional integration, for a multipolar world order through BRICS, for sovereign development and for climate justice, following Brazil's hosting of COP30 in Belém in 2025. It also exposes a hard truth. Lula must govern with a hostile Congress and constrained fiscal space, so the demands for agrarian reform, taxation of the rich, protection of the Amazon and Indigenous land rights will have to be driven by organised pressure from below, not granted from above.

The socialist and progressive world stands in solidarity with Brazil. Lula's victory vindicates popular power, but it is a defensive victory, not yet a decisive one. The task now is to build on the organised strength that carried him over the line, so that the next fascist challenge meets a movement able to defeat it for good.

Long live the Brazilian people! Long live international solidarity!

By: Socialist and Progressive World