Richard Lapper sees Lula da Silva’s remarkable win in the Brazilian elections as a reminder that the right doesn’t have it all their own way. Mike Davis spoke to him.
What swung the runoff for Lula after his first-round deficit?
Lula’s recovery was extraordinary. After trailing by more than two million votes in the first round, he won the runoff by roughly four million in less than a month. Two factors explain it.
As the incumbent, he pushed through targeted measures in the final three weeks. He offered debt relief to self-employed workers—Uber drivers, food deliverers and other small operators who had accumulated substantial obligations. He also opened the prospect of free public transport at weekends. Most importantly, his government piloted legislation through Congress cutting the working week from 44 to 40 hours. By North American or European standards, the change is modest, but in Brazil it is significant: for the first time, workers are entitled to two rest days a week. Low-wage Brazilians typically work long hours six days a week; that is now ending.
At the same time, the Workers’ Party (PT) and its allies ran an unusually effective digital campaign. Lula has long been slow to embrace digital media—until recently, he did not even own a mobile phone. He brought in a non-PT figure from the allied Network party, whose WhatsApp channel grew from 50,000 followers just after the first round to nearly 11 million in under three weeks. The channel mobilised voters and complemented the PT’s traditional street-level organisation. Roughly one-fifth of Brazilians had abstained in the first round; Lula persuaded substantial numbers of them to turn out in the runoff, and the great majority voted for him against Flávio Bolsonaro.
What key policies proved popular?
Brazilian governments since the return to democracy in the mid-1980s have almost always been minority administrations. The PT has now won six presidential elections yet has never held a congressional majority. The political system is highly fragmented—a form of proportional representation that produces weak parties and independent-minded legislators. Lula’s third term since 2022 has been especially constrained: a majority of Congress belongs to centre-right and right-wing parties. He has governed by striking deals, particularly with more traditional right-wing forces, which has sharply limited social reform.
Even so, two areas stand out. The minimum wage has risen each year by a relatively generous formula—inflation plus a share of previous growth — and the increase feeds directly into welfare payments, putting more money in people’s pockets. The administration has also advanced two substantial tax reforms: it raised the income-tax threshold so that more people pay nothing at all, and it began rationalising Brazil’s chaotic and complex system of indirect taxes. Both changes will take time to bite fully, but they are important achievements.
What social and geographical forces shaped the result?
Brazil remains sharply divided. The poorer northeastern states have been consistently pro-Lula; the southeast, south and prosperous agricultural centre-west form Flávio Bolsonaro’s strongest base.
Lula first came to prominence in the late 1970s by leading illegal mass strikes against the military government—the first such actions in a decade. In 1980 he founded the Workers’ Party. Its early strength lay in the big cities of the south and southeast, among the organised manufacturing working class. By the late 1980s, more than a third of the labour force belonged to unions. Lula was weak in the poorer, less organised northeast, long dominated by traditional populist parties of the right. Something I talk about at length in my book Lula: The Man, The Myth and a Dream of Latin America.
Once in office, he introduced the minimum wage, the Bolsa Família cash-transfer programme and wider access to consumer credit. Living standards rose sharply, and Lula acquired a durable base in the northeast for the first time. Simultaneously he lost ground in the more developed south and southeast. Deindustrialisation was a major cause: industry accounted for well over a third of GDP in the 1980s but had fallen to 12–13 per cent by the 2000s. Union density collapsed; today only about 9 per cent of workers are union members. Lula’s support has therefore shifted away from the organised industrial working class of the richer regions toward poorer north easterners and, to a significant extent, public-sector workers. The PT has become, in many eyes, the party that defends the state and its employees against efforts to cut public spending.
Why did Brazil buck the regional rightward swing?
Elsewhere in Latin America, the right has advanced strongly. Several common factors help explain the pattern. Crime and insecurity top the list: organised gangs are powerful and homicide rates, though generally falling, remain high; many voters favour hardline repression. Evangelical Protestantism has also grown rapidly—homegrown rather than merely imported—and promotes conservative views on family and sexuality. In Brazil the Protestant share of the population has risen from 7 per cent in 1980 to more than a third; in parts of Central America it is higher still.
Premature deindustrialisation has compounded the problem. As Dani Rodrik has argued, the collapse of import-substitution industrialisation hit Latin America faster than most of the world. Finally, the record of “21st-century socialism” has been abysmal. Venezuela, the centre of the experiment, lost between a fifth and a quarter of its population to emigration under Nicolás Maduro; many of those who left were ordinary people seeking survival, not oligarchs. Their presence across the region is a constant reminder of failure. Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega has become a repressive autocracy that has imprisoned former comrades and, in some respects, exceeds the Somoza dictatorship. Cuba is no longer a model: even when it has received support from Europe or the Global South, it has remained locked in an inflexible, top-down system that offers little economic opportunity.
Brazil’s runoff result therefore stands as a clear exception to the wider regional trend.
How are Trump and the United States likely to react, and what are the implications for Brazil?
Trump is an ally of the Bolsonaros and is clearly unhappy about the defeat. He has allowed Flávio Bolsonaro temporary entry to the United States, but has not granted permanent asylum. The practical implications for Brazil are more limited than they would have been decades ago. The United States is nowhere near Brazil’s largest trading partner—China accounts for around 30 per cent of exports, while the US share is about 12 per cent and has been trending lower under recent tariffs. China is also increasing investment and has a long-term commitment. Brazil is more diversified financially and more self-sufficient in its own capital markets than in the 1970s and 1980s, when it was heavily dependent on the IMF (repaid in the 2000s as trade with China rose).
Trump has as much to lose from bad relations as Brazil does. He would like access, for strategic reasons, to Brazil’s rare earths—the country holds roughly a quarter of global reserves—yet production remains minimal. Pragmatism could still produce a deal: Trump is principally oriented toward transactions, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio (of Cuban-exile background) is more ideologically anti-communist. Trump is happy to do deals; Rubio less so.
What is the future of the Bolsonaro family and the far right? Will a more centre-right opposition emerge?
The Bolsonaro clan—his four sons Flávio, Carlos, Eduardo, Renan and Jair’s wife Michelle—has dominated the far-right space. All are elected representatives and strongly ideological. Already a divide is visible: the family’s claim of political exile in the United States and calls for resistance from abroad contrast with much of the pro-Bolsonaro Liberal Party, which argues there was no fraud, that the government should be recognised, and that the opposition should play a long game to constrain Lula.
The broader right remains strong and, if it plays intelligently, could win in 2030. Many observers believe a more effective centre-right candidate such as Tarcísio de Freitas (former infrastructure minister under Bolsonaro and now governor of São Paulo) would probably have won the presidency in the first round. Conservatives appear tired of the Bolsonaro family’s antics and are likely to look elsewhere for leadership.
Lula and the PT lost ground in Congress. What problems does that create?
In fact, the PT did not lose seats; it gained slightly in the lower house compared with 2022 and still holds about 70 deputies, with left-wing allies adding roughly another 40—around one-fifth of the chamber. It remains a minority party and will continue to need deals with others. The Liberal Party performed well, mainly at the expense of other right-wing forces rather than the PT. The government will have to govern cautiously; radicalism will be limited.
Could Lula’s victory have wider positive implications for the left in South America?
It has been a difficult year for the left: Maduro’s detention in the United States, the election of right-wingers in Colombia, Chile and Peru. Yet the two largest economies in the region—Brazil under Lula and Mexico under Claudia Sheinbaum—are now led by centre-left figures. Lula’s win suggests there is still an appetite for moderate progressive policies: gentle social reforms and sensible environmental action. There is little enthusiasm for revolutionary politics and a clear repudiation of 21st-century socialism among most voters. Lula is a model in that limited sense. The open question is succession: at 81, this is his last campaign (his fourth presidency), and it is not yet clear who will follow him. That is a problem the PT and its allies must address in the coming years.
Richard Lapper is a veteran writer on South American affairs. His most recent books are Beef, Bible and Bullets-Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro (Manchester University Press, 2021 and Lula! The Man, The Myth and a Dream of Latin America, (Bloomsbury, 2026) with an updated edition to be published soon.