“Brazil’s leftist former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat conservative incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the country’s closest presidential race in history Sunday, cementing Latin America’s shift to the left and marking an extraordinary comeback for a man who was in jail for corruption three years ago,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
New York Times: “The victory completes a stunning political revival for Mr. da Silva — from the presidency to prison and back — that had once seemed unthinkable.”
“It also ends Mr. Bolsonaro’s turbulent time as the region’s most powerful leader. For years, he attracted global attention for policies that accelerated the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and exacerbated the pandemic, which left nearly 700,000 dead in Brazil, while also becoming a major international figure of the far right for his brash attacks on the left, the media and Brazil’s democratic institutions.”
