How did Brazil's Lula pull off another election win?

BRASÍLIA, Oct 27 — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stunned the world with an election victory that has landed him an unprecedented fourth term in office.

Bets were on right-winger Flavio Bolsonaro to become Brazil’s next president after his shock first-round win earlier this month.

But the leftist incumbent bounced back with an energetic runoff campaign, going on to win 51.8 per cent of the vote.

How did 80-year-old Lula pull it off?

Young people take the streets

While the campaign reeled from the first-round defeat, students and young people immediately took to the streets.

Marching to slogans like “Bolsonaro never again,” thousands of people turned out in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte to rally support for Lula, his social policies and his promise to defend minority rights.

“The mobilisation of young people was fundamental,” said Eduardo Grin, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV).

Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) “managed to reconnect with that young audience,” he told AFP.

The president himself said he had not seen anything like it since 1984, when a mass movement called for elections during Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Lula called his first-round campaign the most “disorganized” in decades and overhauled his social media strategy ahead of Sunday’s vote.

The incumbent sought help from young influencer politicians, bought his first cellphone and declared himself “king of the selfie.”

His supporters meanwhile launched a digital offensive of their own to counter the strong online influence of the political right.

Many leftists “spent hours and hours per day online just posting stuff or taking to the streets and talking to voters,” Oliver Stuenkel of the FGV told AFP.

“The social network activity was exhausting; I devoted a lot of time outside my working hours with the awareness that I was working for Lula,” publicist Taiza Mendonca, 36, told AFP in Rio.

Even Mendonca’s “60-year-old aunties” learned the word “hashtag,” she added.

The digital campaign spread wings via the “Lula’s Army” WhatsApp channel, which went from having 60,000 followers to almost 11 million in three weeks.

According to Grin, “the mobilization in the streets and on social media managed to create fear of a return of the Bolsonaro family to power and concern for democracy and social rights.”

Flavio Bolsonaro, 45, was chosen to lead the political right by his father, ex-leader Jair Bolsonaro who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup after his own loss to Lula in 2022.

His critics remember his administration for rising hunger rates, a poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, increased violence against minorities and environmental policies rooted in denial of climate change.

Bearing a strong physical resemblance to his father, Flavio called Jair his “compass” during the campaign, vowing to liberate him if elected.

Lula passed a raft of crowd-pleasing measures in the run-up to the election.

Congress handed him a key victory by approving a reform that guarantees workers two days of rest per week, a cornerstone campaign pledge.

The government rescheduled October welfare payments to land before the runoff instead of after, along with a wave of debt forgiveness for small-scale entrepreneurs and a raft of other popular measures.

“I’m not going to stop granting a benefit I can grant just because there are elections,” Lula said in an interview on the campaign trail. — AFP

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巴西利亚，10 月 27 日——巴西总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦以一场选举胜利震惊世界，史无前例地获得了第四个总统任期。

此前，右翼候选人弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗在本月初的首轮投票中意外获胜，人们普遍看好他成为巴西下一任总统。

但这位左翼现任议员凭借一场充满活力的决选竞选活动强势反弹，最终赢得了 51.8% 的选票。

80岁高龄的卢拉是如何做到的？

年轻人走上街头

在第一轮投票失败后，竞选活动陷入困境，学生和年轻人立即走上街头。

成千上万的人高喊着“博索纳罗永不再来”等口号，聚集在里约热内卢、圣保罗和贝洛奥里藏特等城市，声援卢拉、他的社会政策以及他捍卫少数族裔权利的承诺。

“动员年轻人至关重要，”瓦加斯基金会（FGV）的政治学家爱德华多·格林说。

卢拉的劳工党（PT）“成功地重新赢得了年轻选民的支持”，他告诉法新社。

总统本人表示，自 1984 年巴西军政府统治时期爆发大规模选举运动以来，他从未见过这样的景象。

卢拉称他的第一轮竞选活动是几十年来最“混乱”的，并在周日投票前彻底改变了他的社交媒体策略。

现任官员向年轻的有影响力的政治人物寻求帮助，购买了他的第一部手机，并自称“自拍之王”。

与此同时，他的支持者们也发起了一场数字攻势，以对抗右翼政治势力强大的网络影响力。

FGV 的 Oliver Stuenkel 告诉法新社，许多左翼人士“每天花几个小时在网上发布内容，或者走上街头与选民交谈”。

“社交网络活动令人筋疲力尽；我投入了大量业余时间，因为我知道自己是在为卢拉工作，”36 岁的公关人员泰萨·门多萨在里约热内卢告诉法新社。

她补充说，就连门多萨“60岁的阿姨们”都学会了“话题标签”这个词。

这场数字宣传活动通过“Lula's Army”WhatsApp频道迅速传播开来，三周内粉丝数量从6万增长到近1100万。

格林表示，“街头和社交媒体上的动员成功地制造了人们对博尔索纳罗家族重新掌权的恐惧，以及对民主和社会权利的担忧。”

45岁的弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗被他的父亲、前领导人雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗选为右翼政治领袖。雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗因在2022年败给卢拉后企图发动政变而被判处27年监禁。

他的批评者们记得，在他的执政期间，饥饿率不断上升，对新冠疫情处理不当，针对少数族裔的暴力事件增加，以及基于否认气候变化的环境政策。

弗拉维奥与他的父亲在外貌上非常相似，在竞选期间，他称雅伊尔为他的“指南针”，并誓言如果当选，他将解放他。

在选举前夕，卢拉通过了一系列讨好民众的措施。

国会批准了一项改革，保障工人每周休息两天，这是他竞选时的核心承诺，这给了他一次关键的胜利。

政府将 10 月份的福利金发放时间改到决选前而不是决选后，同时还对小型企业家进行了一系列债务减免，并推出了一系列其他受欢迎的措施。

卢拉在竞选途中接受采访时表示：“我不会因为有选举就停止发放我能发放的福利。”——法新社

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