After an extremely close election that had the world holding its breath, left wing candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, won against the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, a far right former army captain and climate denier in the Brazilian presidential election.

In Brazil, after a tense day of polling in the largest country in South America and home to the Amazon Rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world, the left wing candidate Lula has won the election by the narrowest margin of any Brazilian presidential election with Lula winning with a majority of only 1.8% of the vote. Lula was previously president between 2003 and 2010 and was hugely popular with the Brazilian electorate but was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election (which Jair Bolsonaro won) because of corruption charges. These were later dismissed by the Brazilian Supreme Court after they found that the verdict was heavily biased against him.

Lula was born in 1945 and was a former trade unionist before running for president for the Workers party for the first time in 1989 after he had led major protests against the Brazilian dictatorship, leading to some of the first democratic elections in the country. He ran twice again before succeeding in the 2002 election where he won 61% of the vote before winning again in 2006. During his time in office previously, he introduced radical reforms which led to a massive growth in GDP and uplifted 20 million people out of poverty in Brazil. In contrast, Jair Bolsonaro is a former army captain who is known for his right wing, populist viewpoints which include opposition to homosexuality, same-sex marriage and abortion as well as being a fierce climate denier.

During Jair Bolsonaro’s term as president, he has overseen an extremely high rate of deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest, destroying over 10,000 square miles of the rainforest by cutting spending for environmental agencies, firing climate scientists and undoing enforcement measures put in place by President Lula. Vital to the world’s ecosystem, the Amazon rainforest acts as lungs for the world and under Bolsonaro, an area larger than Belgium was cleared in just under one year. During his chaotic presidency, he oversaw almost 700,000 people die of Covid and almost 35 million catch the disease after he said the “destructive power of this virus is overestimated.”

Now that Lula has confirmed to have won the presidency, many have celebrated around the world with sighs of relief that one of the most important factors in stopping climate change is safer now in the hands of Lula. In his victory speech, he pledged to clamp down on illegal deforestation and mining and said that "Brazil is ready to retake its leadership in the fight against the climate crisis," in reassurance to many climate activists across the world. Overall, this is a win for the rest of the world now that the leader of one of the largest countries in the world, with the 7th largest population and 8th largest economy is no longer a homophobic, right wing climate denier.