RIO DE JANEIRO – The shock election victory of Brazil’s left-wing President has dealt a blow to Donald Trump’s efforts to spread US dominance across Latin America.
The leftist veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pulled off a historic comeback on Sunday evening when he beat right-wing populist and Trump ally Flávio Bolsonaro – son of the disgraced former president Jair Bolsonaro – in a bitterly fought presidential election run-off.
Lula claimed a historic fourth term in power with just under 52 per cent of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 48 per cent, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court said – more than four million more votes. The unexpected victory makes him the first Brazilian elected president after losing the first round since the country’s first post-dictatorship election in 1989.
Why you’re set to pay thousands more in income tax
Workers could lose thousands of pounds more from their incomes over the next few years – unless Chancellor John Healey acts to reverse his predecessor’s “stealth tax” rule.
What is the ‘stealth tax’?
The personal allowance – the amount people can earn before paying income tax – has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021, and the freeze was extended at last year’s Budget.
This creates a so-called “stealth tax” as salaries grow to keep up with inflation, causing workers to pay more in income tax and national insurance over time.
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How your tax bill will be affected
The biggest rises in tax are seen for those on salaries of around…
This is because every extra pound these people earn is effectively taxed at 60 per cent until they earn £125,140.
When you earn an extra £2 in this bracket, you pay…
40%
… higher rate income tax on it (costing you 80p), and you lose £1 of your tax-free allowance.
Total tax and lost allowance equal £1.20 out of every £2 earned.
Will Burnham change things?
Experts say it is unlikely Burnham will take action to increase the tax thresholds at the Budget, largely because of the cost.
However, reports this weekend have suggested there could be changes made for some pensioners.
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María Machado returns after months in exile – what we know
The Venezuelan opposition leader has finally come home to crowds of ecstatic supporters after more than 10 months away.
A triumphant return
On Sunday, she was spotted attending mass in the Lara state after being repeatedly barred from re-entering her home country.
She later travelled to Caracas where she was mobbed by jubilant crowds.
Machado wrote on X: “Night of reunion in our Caracas. For the reunion of each family, for the Freedom of each political prisoner, for the Freedom of Venezuela.”
Where does this leave Venezuela?
- In December 2025, Machado left Venezuela in secret to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
- In January, US forces abducted former president Nicolás Maduro, her authoritarian political opponent.
- Maduro is now in jail in New York and due to be tried in June 2027. He denies all charges.
- He was replaced by deputy Delcy Rodríguez, the interim President.
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The American outlook
Machado’s return to Venezuela needed US approval.
The opposition figure gave Trump her peace prize in January after he made it clear he felt he had been snubbed.
Trump said: “I think she’s a very nice woman. She gave me her Nobel Prize, so how can I say anything else? And I hope she’s safe.”
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Chris Brown avoids jail over London nightclub attack
The singer was handed a suspended sentence after he admitted hitting a man with a tequila bottle in a central London club.
CCTV footage was shown where Chris Brown struck Abraham Diaw, connecting twice with his head, and then hitting his shoulder.
What you need to know
The 37-year-old admitted to affray earlier this year after attacking his former friend in Mayfair in February 2023. The incident lasted around 20 seconds and started at around 3am, the court heard.
On Monday at Southwark Crown Court, Brown was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months.
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A ‘plainly dangerous’ attack
Brown’s vocal coach, Omololu Akinlolu, 40, who joined the attack, was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and both men were ordered to pay £1,500 costs.
Judge Tony Baumgartner called the attack “plainly dangerous” and warned that “commercial success does not attract preferential treatment” in court.
us news
Rapper Nicki Minaj joins Trump onstage at Michigan rally
The musician joined the Republican campaign ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November.
What did she say?
Minaj, who has shown support for Donald Trump in the past, called herself his “number one fan”.
On Sunday, she flew into Port Huron on Air Force One, before she addressed the rally. She said: “We really need all these great people to be elected, because this is a major turning point for our country.”
Rallying support for the GOP
Trump called the rapper “beautiful” and “smart” before adding: “By the way, I looked at a beautiful ass before. Nicki Minaj. That’s hard to miss.”
He also hit out at Democratic senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, alleging he would “invite jihadists” to the US.
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Locked in a tight race
El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers are locked in an extremely tight race just days ahead of the midterm elections.
Former president Barack Obama lent his weight to the Democrat campaign at a rally on Saturday.
Campaigning in Ohio and Michigan, Obama told crowds: “This election is our last best chance to at least rein in some of the foolishness of this administration.”
Brazil’s President Lula wins fourth term – what we know
The left-wing incumbent has prevailed after a bitter election campaign, but his right-wing opponent Flávio Bolsonaro has not conceded.
Lula clings on to presidency
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won 51.79 per cent of votes in the run-off agianst Bolsonaro, who gained 48.21 per cent.
Lula celebrated a “historic victory”, his fourth after serving as president from 2003 to 2010, then again from January 2023.
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Bitter road to victory
- Bolsonaro had beaten Lula in the first round vote on 4 October.
- Observers thought it might not be possible for the incumbent to turn his fortunes around in less than a month.
But Lula’s camp successfully utilised popular demonstrations and a significant social media drive.
Bolsonaro refuses to accept defeat
- The son of the former president criticised the extension of polling by two hours.
- He told supporters he would try and get the election annulled.
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Who will be hit badly by the Budget?
John Healey will deliver his first Budget as Chancellor on Wednesday, but he may have little room to manoeuvre due to surging Government debt costs.
Any new spending will probably have to be paid for with trade-offs elsewhere.
Who will be worse off?
- Business sources suspect Healey is set to pause Labour’s pledge to bring rates for young workers on minimum wage into line with over-21s.
Healey signalled concern about the impact on jobs.
- reports that Healey is considering reversing former chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s cut to the surcharge.
Worse off: people who owe tax
It can currently only do so where a debt exceeds £1,000, and must leave at least £5,000 in the account – but under the reported plans the threshold would fall to as little as a few pounds.
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Who will be better off?
- For the first time, the full new state pension is set to rise above the personal allowance.
- This means will be better off as they will not pay income tax.
- Households struggling with energy bills are also anticipated to have some relief.
- Healey is expected to expand the Warm Home Discount, which takes £150 off bills for households on means-tested benefits.
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Who else?
Burnham and Healey are committed to replacing the Lifetime ISA with a new ISA, The i Paper has been told, which would pay a government bonus when savers buy their first home.
The decision to leave capital gains tax untouched will be beneficial for , too.
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The surprise victory bucks the trend of right-wing leaders sweeping the continent, and represents a bitter loss for Trump, who had thrown his support behind Bolsonaro as part of his efforts to pull the region further into Washington’s orbit under his so-called Donroe Doctrine.
Seven right-wing leaders have been elected since April 2025, including in Chile, Peru and Colombia, and the Trump administration made no secret of wanting Latin America’s largest democracy to become the eighth.
Last year, Trump slapped 50 per cent tariffs on Brazil, citing the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, who, like Trump after his loss in the 2020 election, refused to concede his defeat to Lula in 2022. Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup to stay in power which ended in a US Capitol-style attack on government buildings.
“It is a witch hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote in a letter to Lula he shared online in 2025. Trump has described right-wing ally Bolsonaro as a friend and hosted him at his Mar-a-Lago resort when they were both in power in 2020.
Flávio Bolsonaro ran on a vague anti-establishment platform of fiscal conservatism, hardline security and freeing his father. That also meant he aligned himself with Trump’s US.
At demonstrations in São Paulo last week Bolsonaro supporters wore Maga hats and carried a plastic missile bearing the message “Trump, Nuke Brazil”.
Now Bolsonaro Jr, following in the footsteps of both his father and Trump, has also refused to accept the election result, and called for it to be annulled.
But the greatest weapon powering Lula’s re-election may have been Trump himself.
His efforts to pressure Brazil backfired because they allowed Lula to campaign for a “sovereign Brazil”. This including warning against handing over the country’s rare earth minerals to the US – which the Trump administration has made it clear they want to secure.
“We will not allow Brazil to be anyone’s backyard,” Lula told crowds packed onto Copacabana’s beachfront on the eve of the election.
Fears also grew in recent weeks that even America’s Silicon Valley was meddling in Brazilian democracy after Lula’s social media accounts were restricted.
Brazil’s electoral court ordered Meta to explain allegations of algorithmic bias after its AI-generated campaign images favouring Bolsonaro while refusing similar requests for Lula. Meta denied political interference and blamed technical errors.
Furthermore, a investigation on Saturday revealed that two senior US Department of State officials, Darren Beattie and Ricardo Pita, had pushed for sanctions intended to weaken Lula and return the Bolsonaro family to power.
‘I didn’t think he could do it’
But none of it mattered in the end. As the results came in on Sunday evening, supporters dressed in red and covered in Lula stickers took to the streets and screamed the President’s name to the backdrop of fireworks.
“I didn’t think he could do it, honestly, after the first round,” said 36-year-old Thiago Silva, who was celebrating in downtown Rio de Janeiro with his mother. “It’s an incredible relief.”
Bolsonaro had success tapping into voters’ security concerns by vowing to round up criminals in new prisons. He also pledged to bring down Brazil’s public debt, which had risen by more than 10 percentage points during Lula’s latest term.
“The time for change has come,” Bolsonaro told reporters in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro on Sunday after casting his vote. “Brazil can’t take any more. Everyone’s lives have gotten worse.”
Lula, on the other hand, pledged to protect his social programmes and squeezed through popular policies in the weeks before the election, including banning betting companies and reducing the working week from six days to five.
The President warned that Bolsonaro would pick up where his father – who presided over a surge in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the deaths of more than 700,000 Brazilians during the pandemic – left off.
Lula, a former trade unionist, also warned that Bolsonaro would likely follow in the authoritarian footsteps of his father. “Either we keep democracy functioning, or we will have a militiaman governing this country from the presidential palace,” Lula said in the final debate as the candidates traded barbs.
The result secured a fourth term for Lula and his Workers’ Party after a campaign that resembled a bizarre Brazilian spin-off of US politics.
The left-wing veteran was widely written off by political analysts three weeks ago after trailing Bolsonaro by more than 2.2 million votes in the first round.
As Lula tried to remind Brazilians of the health and social programmes the Workers’ Party created and the millions of Brazilians he had lifted out of poverty, his old-left politics looked outdated at times. The 80-year-old uploaded videos of himself boxing to show he was not a Brazilian Joe Biden. However, in debates he struggled to match the energy of his 45-year-old adversary and respond to the Trumpian barrage of disinformation.
Of the 21 statements made by Bolsonaro that were examined during one debate, 19 were false or inaccurate, the fact-checking organisation Aos Fatos found.
“I’ve never seen politics like it in my life,” said 64-year-old Monica Ronai in Rio de Janeiro. “The lying, the hate and the misinformation. It’s like trying to play a board game against someone who decides to take the board away.”
Lula will face hurdles ahead, with a right-wing Congress that is all but certain to impede his agenda, and Bolsonaro continuing to claim the result is was “impossible”.
However, many in the country will be ecstatic at the result, not least because Brazil defied the will of the US. As Erika Hilton, a Brazilian congresswoman, declared: “We defeated Meta. We defeated the betting industry. We defeated the United States.”