As Brazil witnessed a massive political battle between incumbent president far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro and left leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the latter made a huge comeback in politics- one that even he could not have predicted.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also known as Lulahad 50.8% and Bolsonaro 49.2% as the election authority said the former’s victory was a mathematical certainty.
Lula became Brazil’s first working-class president in 2002 but stepped down after two terms in 2010. Even then he was extremely popular with approval ratings close to 90%. His Workers’ party (PT) after that was found embroiled in corruption scandals and accused of plunging Brazil into a brutal recession.
Read more: Brazil elections 2022: It’s Jair Bolsonaro vs Lula da Silva, explained
Owing to corruption charges, Lula was jailed in 2018 and barred from running in that year’s election, which Jair Bolsonaro went on to win. Lula’s 580-day imprisonment ended in late 2019 as his convictions were quashed on the grounds that he was unfairly tried by Sérgio Moro, a rightwing judge.
In May this year, Lula who first sought the presidency in 1989, announced his sixth presidential run, vowing to beat Jair Bolsonaro by staging “the greatest peaceful revolution the world has ever seen”.
