Brazil and Serbia show that progressive forces can defeat the far right

Lula’s dramatic comeback to win Sunday’s presidential election in Brazil has put a halt to the right-wing advance across Latin America. It offers hope and a lesson to progressive movements around the world.

By the time Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began his speech at a victory rally in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night, his voice was hoarse from campaigning and he was chugging from a water bottle. After a few sentences, he handed the microphone to his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, a political centrist with strong ties to Brazil’s business community.

Alckmin will be a crucial figure in Brazil’s efforts to calm financial markets that were betting on a win for Flávio Bolsonaro, the right-winger whose margin of victory in the first round appeared to make him unstoppable. Bolsonaro had promised to cut taxes for the rich and slash welfare spending for the poor, an agenda that warmed the cockles of investors’ hearts.

Focusing Brazilian voters’ attention on Bolsonaro’s austerity plans was part of the key to Lula’s success in turning a 2.2 million vote deficit three weeks ago into a winning margin of four million votes on Sunday.

But Lula’s 51.8 per cent to 48.2 per cent victory was chiefly the result of a massive mobilisation of the voters with most to lose from a Bolsonaro presidency, led by the young and the less well-off.

When Lula took the microphone back from his vice-president, much of his acceptance speech was devoted to thanking those who helped him, among them a man in a football jersey standing next to him. This was André Janones, a 42-year-old lawyer and federal deputy who led a social media campaign that transformed Lula’s strategy between the first and second rounds.

The digital campaign mobilised millions behind pro-Lula demonstrations on social media platforms and on the streets, even persuading the president to get his first smartphone and to make short videos. The surge of campaigning energy behind Lula contrasted with the complacency that appeared to take hold of Bolsonaro as he prepared to coast to victory aloft a wave of fear, greed and defeatism.

Thousands of kilometres away in Serbia, voters on Sunday were also demonstrating the power of campaigning as candidates backed by student protesters defeated former president Aleksandar Vucic in a parliamentary election. Vucic, who had resigned as president to seek the position of prime minister, conceded defeat on Sunday as projections pointed to the Student List winning between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member parliament, compared to his list’s 105.

Two years of protesting, organising and campaigning that began after the collapse of a railway canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, facing police violence and state repression, have brought the student movement this far.

The Student List has promised a free media landscape, anti-corruption legislation and the safeguarding of judicial independence as well as better education, healthcare and access to housing.

Lula’s upset victory in Brazil has important geopolitical implications in halting the spread of right-wing governments across Latin America and challenging Donald Trump’s ambitions in the region.

But Brazil and Serbia also reminded the world on Sunday that progressive forces can defeat the far right and dislodge entrenched power but if they wish to do so, they must organise.

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