On October 25 local time, Brazil held the second round of presidential elections. The current president and Labor Party candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated the Liberal Party candidate, Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, and was reelected.
After winning the election, Lula spoke in São Paulo, Brazil. He emphasized that Brazil is "not anyone's backyard," and thanked the Brazilian people for helping him overcome interference from foreign forces in the elections. He described this election as a "failure of negativism and lies."
Lula praised the rally held on the 24th on Paulista Avenue in São Paulo. He said that at the rally, he requested that the patriotic Brazilian song "Ordem do Dia" be played. He was deeply moved when his supporters sang "Either the country is free, or die for Brazil." He said this shows that Brazil will never accept being the backyard of anyone else.
Lula criticized some social media platforms for trying to interfere in Brazil's presidential elections, and called for stronger regulation of technology companies.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Earlier this month, Lula’s campaign team accused the American tech giant Meta of interfering in the Brazilian elections by restricting the dissemination of his social media content. In their statement, the campaign team argued that since December last year, social platforms owned by Meta, such as Facebook and Instagram, have allegedly been limiting the spread of Lula’s campaign content, putting him at a disadvantage in the election race.
On October 15th, the Brazilian Electoral Court issued a ruling ordering Meta to take immediate measures to treat both candidates equally before the second round of voting. Meta is not allowed to implement measures such as reducing political content exposure, restricting searches, or deleting posts, which could lead to an imbalance in treatment between Lula and Flávio.
Meta has always insisted that it had not "purposefully suppressed" the Lu family camp, but the Brazilian São Paulo newspaper revealed on the 16th that Meta employees admitted in internal communication records that Lu's Instagram account was limited during the election period and its traffic suffered negative impact.
Lula said that the results of this presidential election were a failure of 'negativism and lies'. He said, 'This country is ready to build. I won't use the term 'national unity', because it doesn't always apply in our country. But I want you to know: if it were up to me, this country must become a civilized country.'
He promised that the Brazilian federal government will play a greater role in public safety to ensure the safety of the people. He added that, as digital communication becomes increasingly important, the government will further strengthen its communication with the public through social media platforms.
The presidential election in Brazil was extremely competitive, with both candidates leading for a while, but Lula eventually managed to overtake his opponent. According to the São Paulo Post, 99.99% of the votes have been counted, with Lula receiving 51.79% of the votes, and Flavio obtaining 48.21%.
