In his victory speech last night, former president – and now president-elect –Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asserted that the world missed Brazil as it sunk to a state of unprecedented international isolation in recent years. Lula, an impassioned orator used to speaking extemporaneously, calmly read prepared remarks that struck notes of harmony, healing and restoration. “It is time to put down the arms we never should have picked up,” he said at one point as his wife and future firstlady Rosângela da Silva became visibly emotional at his side. “Brazil is back,” Lula insisted, promising to “work tirelessly for a Brazil where love prevails over hate, truth over lies, and hope is bigger than fear”.
Lula’s unlikely ascent to another term in office in Latin America’s largest nation represents renewed opportunities for his country. Indeed, given the host of problems Brazil faces in the years to come, including reining in deforestation, navigating the decline of US hegemony in the hemisphere, and reversing an alarming slide into deindustrialization, to cite just a few, it is hard to imagine someone better equipped than Lula to turn the page from Jair Bolsonaro, the outgoing far-right extremist who has governed the country since 2019.
