(PHOTO: Brazil's president-elect, Lula da Silva)

Transition Without Concession – President Jair Bolsonaro indicated he would hand over Brazil’s reins to the leftist candidate who defeated him in last Sunday’s runoff elections, NPR’s All Things Considered reports. In a news conference in Brasilia that lasted less than two minutes, Bolsonaro said “As a president and as a citizen I will continue to follow all the commandments of our constitution.”

Bolsonaro did not mention the name of Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inåcio Lula da Silva. 

Eager for Victory Speech – Meanwhile in Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, prime minister from 1996-99 and again from 2009-21, “holds an edge” in the country’s election, based on exit polls, The New York Times reports, and his Likud party already is celebrating ahead of the final count. If his lead holds, Netanyahu will reclaim power and preside over “one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history,” even as he is on trial for corruption charges related to his previous term as PM, according to the Times. 

Netanyahu has at least one thing in common with Brazil’s defeated presidential candidate, Bolsonaro: A fondness for former U.S. President Donald Trump.

--TL

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Da Silva Wins Brazil; Will Bolsonaro Trump Him? (MON 11/1/22)

Leftist Luiz Inåcio da Silva (above) defeated first-term incumbent Jair Bolsonaro for president of the world’s fourth-largest democracy in Brazil’s run-off elections Sunday with 50.9% of the vote, the Associated Press reports. With 99.9% of the ballots counted, Brazil’s election authority proclaimed da Silva’s victory a mathematical certainty. 

By 10 p.m. local time, three hours after the results were tabulated, the lights went out in the presidential palace in Sao Paolo without any hint of a concession from Bolsonaro, AP says. Before the run-off forced when da Silva led the October 2 election but was short of the 50% necessary for an outright win, Bolsonaro had made repeated and unproven Trumpian claims of potential electoral manipulation, and it remains uncertain whether he will concede without further fight. 

Da Silva had served as Brazil’s president from 2003-10, but his imprisonment for corruption sidelined him in his 2018 bid for the presidency. He beat Bolsonaro by fewer than 2 million votes, the slimmest margin since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985, according to AP. The country tabulates ballots electronically; thus the quick results Sunday.

Upshot: After September’s election of Giorgi Meloni’s far-right, nationalist Brothers of Italy party in that country, da Silva’s victory over nationalist Bolsonaro is considered a much-needed win for the future of liberal democracy around the world. 

Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa