In a surprising turn of events, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won Brazil's presidential election on Sunday, October 25. The incumbent president led the second round with 51.79% of the vote, compared to 48.21% for his opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro – "the crescendo of Lula’s incredible, if sometimes controversial, 50-year political career," wrote the correspondent for the British daily the Guardian.

El Pais America immediately highlighted the scale of Lula's victory – "four million more votes" – and, like many others, emphasized the achievement of the outgoing president, who became the first candidate to win after not finishing first in the initial round. The New York Times tallied the results: "In just three weeks, Mr. Lula found more than 10 million new votes." Lula "appealed to young voters, put millions of Brazilians on the streets to defend democratic values and his legacy, raised fears of another Bolsonaro administration and boosted several government initiatives," explained the American news agency Associated Press.

However, several experts interviewed by BBC Portuguese cautioned that "Lula's victory cannot be interpreted as an unqualified endorsement of his government and is largely due to the high level of rejection of Jair Bolsonaro's successor," whom many undecided voters "saw as a threat to democracy," added the German weekly Der Spiegel.