Lula’s Victory Offers Hope for Democracy and the Amazon
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva lost the first round of the Brazilian election and fell behind in the polls, I thought he would lose the election. So, the fact that he won is a stunning comeback. It took the three weeks between the two elections, hundreds of hours of street and online mobilization by Lula’s Army of Supporters, to defeat the conservative candidate, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro. Another member of the Bolsonaro family, of course!
Lula’s winning magic was helped by a video. It’s a clip between the two men from their debate that rightfully deserves to be immortalized. In it, Bolsonaro asks him: “Why are 73% of the prisoners voting for you?” And the wise Lula answers: “I want 100% of the prisoners’ votes. Including your dad’s vote!” The people in the studio laughed. This exchange made Brazilian society laugh too, wake up, and think, after seeing a dynamic performance by Lula on live TV. It was the opposite of former US President Joe Biden in that infamous debate.
Bolsonaro (son of the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro who is imprisoned), who had pledged to join President Donald Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” security and political initiative, is the big loser. Flávio reportedly fled Brazil after losing. Nobody has to be a genius to advise him: “Flávio, you lost. Concede with dignity. Don’t follow Trump’s infamous playbook. Show some grace in defeat.” But Bolsonaro losing is great news not only for the people of Brazil, but also for the flora and fauna of the Amazon rainforest.
Thus, Lula, who is a former worker, a unionist, and a pragmatic politician, prevents the return to power of the far-right with the Bolsonaros.
Thus, Lula wins a fourth term as Brazilian president, after a dramatic run-off. The crucial matter is that Lula, alone, defeated Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, and Flávio Bolsonaro together. After all, defeated are those who stop fighting! Musk said Brazil’s presidential election results do not “add up.” Relax, Mr. Trillionaire! Next to Lula, the Amazon rainforest won big time, ensuring it will not become a place for giant companies worth billions who want to mine for diamonds, gold, and extract petrol from its lands. And Anne Applebaum wrote in an X post: “In one day, two politicians—Bolsonaro in Brazil and Vucic in Serbia—with ties to Trump and his family have lost surprise elections, thanks to high turnout. The rise of the international far-right is not inevitable.”
Lula has four fingers on his left hand! The one finger that’s missing, he lost at 17 years old when he was working as a metalworker and a mechanical lathe crushed his pinky finger. As he has said, “I arrived at three in the morning [at the hospital] smelling like work overalls, smelling like grease” and he looked so bad that the doctor didn’t bother to save his finger. In his eyes, that was the result of poverty.
During his years in power, Lula has supported democratic institutions and made important progress on protecting the forest—there is a web of laws protecting the Amazon now–and local communities who depend on it for their survival, but of course, for a few analysts, he had a mixed record in other areas. The economy has problems, but the same happens in countries like Germany and Japan.
Someone must acknowledge that deforestation has dropped drastically under Lula’s government, which has “set a target of completely halting illegal deforestation by 2030.” It reactivated the Amazon Fund, which is a mechanism backed by countries like Norway to finance conservation and monitoring, and stepped up enforcement through satellite imagery and policing. Lula also launched on November 6, 2025 the Tropical Forests Forever Facility to help developing nations to keep their forests intact.
The win in Brazil, the win in Serbia, the probable win in Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's disastrous far-right coalition, and the upcoming midterms in the US, which will also test control of Congress, show that the power belongs to the people. That’s democracy in other words, and the people must have the final say.
Thus, Lula, who is a former worker, a unionist, and a pragmatic politician, prevents the return to power of the far-right with the Bolsonaros. So, this is a great result not only for the workers and democracy, but also for the giant Amazon lung. An electoral win for all the species that have lived there for thousands of years! Money is not above everything as capitalism’s big corporations teach, while in the end, the poor get crumbs if they’re lucky. The “pro-worker” left, headed by Lula, may have its own problems, but it is far better for society and the environment. The right thinks mainly of the plutocrats and the big profits; it leaves barbarism, which is a society in ruins.
The tireless Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said about Lula’s victory: “He will continue to fight for Brazilian workers and democracy over the next four years.” All the progressives and their grassroots movements around the world breathed the fresh air of the Amazon again.
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Dimitris Eleas was born in Athens. He is a New York City-based political scientist, writer, author, and independent researcher. His essays and articles have appeared in the Washington Examiner, Foreign Affairs (Hellenic Edition), To Vima (Greece’s leading newspaper), Dissident Voice, ZNetwork, The Books’ Journal, The National Herald, and SLpress, while his letters have been published by The New York Times (four times, three selected as the lead letter), The Wall Street Journal (two times, each appeared as a standalone piece), and The Washington Post (four times, one selected as the lead letter). He is the author of books in Greek and English. His latest novel-essay is When Shakespeare Was Lost, 1585-1592 (Govostis Publishers, 2025), and he is currently developing an English novel-essay, The Black Birds of Warsaw, set against the backdrop of the Holocaust.