After losing in the first round, Lula da Silva pulled off a historic comeback to be re-elected president of Brazil in the second round. Back in the Palácio do Planalto, which he had never left, the leader of the Workers' Party (PT) defied unfavourable precedent: since 1989, the year when Brazil returned to direct presidential elections and introduced the two-round system**,** no candidate trailing after the first round had ever gone on to win the second.
"I owe this to you. I have always thought that God has been very generous to me, because there are so many people better prepared than I am, so many people with more diplomas than I have, so many people who have read more books than I have, so many people who have studied more than I have," he said in his victory speech, his fourth after a presidential election.
