Lula’s comeback to victory in Brazil’s 2026 presidential election was no accident. After trailing far-right Flávio, son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, by 2 million votes in the first round, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the runoff by more than twice that, powered by a movement that deployed mass street mobilizations and a “Lula’s Army” WhatsApp channel to turn the race around in just three weeks.
Now Flávio Bolsonaro has fled to Miami, defying a court order and claiming the vote was stolen. But lawyer and Movimento Brasil Popular organizer Ana Júlia Guedes credits a disciplined campaign that exposed the far right’s criminal ties. And she tells Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek the honeymoon will be short: Lula still faces a deeply conservative Congress, rising political violence against Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian communities, and right-wing governors already moving to block his pro-worker agenda.
Guedes explains what’s at stake in Lula’s final term, from social media regulation to a push for mineral sovereignty over Brazil’s lithium and rare earths – and why Brazilians celebrating Bolsonaro’s defeat are already preparing for a tough fight ahead.
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Rough transcript follows:
[Speaker 1:] Part of his escape has to do with the fact that, because he was part of the Congress, part of the Senate, he still is until the end of the year. But because he will lose that, he will lose the privilege of being judged only at the superior and the Supreme Court. When he loses that privilege, he will be judged by a regular court, regular justices. So that will definitely increase the possibilities of him paying for the crimes.
On October 25th, Brazil’s three-time and current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, surprised the entire world by overcoming an electoral setback in the first round, in which he was defeated by far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, and secured victory in the second round. The legendary union leader during the dictatorship secured 51.79%, equivalent to over 64 million votes, while Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of detained former president Jair Bolsonaro, received 48.21% of the votes, about 59 million.
What’s truly surprising about Bolsonaro’s defeat, because many pollsters had predicted that he would sweep through with this victory having won the first round, is the enormous number of votes that Lula managed to gain during the three weeks between the first and second rounds of voting. Flávio Bolsonaro had won this first round with 48.2% of the votes, more than 56 million votes, and Lula had come in second with 45% of the votes, just 54 million. So there was a significant increase in what he was able to win in the second round.
The key to Lula’s success seemed to lie in his, the PT’s, and the progressive camp’s ability to mobilize millions of people on the streets and on social media in response to Meta’s censorship. Lula supporters hit back with the famous “Lula’s Army,” a WhatsApp channel with over 10 million members, which was in constant mobilization to share, like, and comment on all of the posts for Lula’s campaign. The comeback was of historic proportions, but the struggle is not over yet.
This week, Flávio Bolsonaro left Brazil for Miami of all places and alleges that he is being persecuted and that he rightfully won the elections, though he retracted a declaration that he was the legitimate president of Brazil. If we remember anything from the 2022 Brazilian elections, it’s that the fraud allegations don’t stop with mere statements.
With us to discuss this historic victory, how it happened, and what comes next, we are once again joined by Ana Júlia Gess, lawyer and member of Momento Brasil Popular. Ana Júlia, welcome back to BT Live.
[Speaker 2:] Hi everyone. Hi girls. I’m really, really happy to be here today. This is absolutely, I think in our wildest dreams we couldn’t imagine having such an important victory at this point.
[Speaker 1:] Well, you do seem a lot more calm than last time.
[Speaker 2:] Oh yeah. Oh girl, we were ready to do whatever we needed to do, but oh my god. Yeah, we were ready to do whatever we needed to do, but we knew we had to do a lot. And I think it paid off. Definitely paid off.
[Speaker 1:] And I’m sure there was very little sleep and a lot of being on the streets, being on your phone. First off, we want to talk about this exciting news but just kind of start with the results. So, with what happened on Sunday, what do the results, the voting, which states voted, how many people voted, the abstention rates, what does this tell us about who came out to vote, who perhaps changed their vote, and whose vote was decisive in Lula’s second round victory?
[Speaker 2:] Yeah. So, I mean, just to give quick numbers, we came out of a 2 million votes less. We were behind two million votes to almost five million votes up front. We saw 10 million more people voting for Lula and a very big reduction not only in the number of absences, so we had more people voting, and those who went to vote, we also see them, less people not voting for anyone because in Brazil you can annul your vote at the ballot. So, we saw an increase in participation and that is a result of combining the forces.
We were experiencing exactly what we’ve heard throughout our lives as militants, as activists, that is a combination of the ways of struggle. We were on social media, we were on the streets, we were making discussions about politics like big politics, sovereignty, Brazil’s economy, but also talking about how the access to medication, the access to health, the access to scholarships, how that was also part of what we were deciding.
We saw the two extremes of ages participating. We saw an increase of young folks going to vote and being involved and engaged in all sorts of struggles on social media and on the streets. But we also saw our elderly who have seen dictatorship. We’re talking about people who are even older than Lula, who are 85, 90 years old, those who are 70, 75, who saw and lived through dictatorship coming out of their homes with difficulties. Some of them with disabilities, with mobility difficulties. They all went to vote and they went to vote with a little Lula sticker. Everyone was excited to demonstrate that they had a side.
It’s more than just this electoral victory. What we’re witnessing as people in Brazil right now is something that if you mobilize, if you organize, you can achieve something. And I think that will definitely change the course, the pathways of politics from now on because we’re going to have huge challenges. We’re already seeing the types of violence that we have overcome. We’re definitely changing the ways here and we’re all really glad. Those who have some contact with international media, international news, we’re also really glad to have become some sort of symbol of hope because this is what we talked about when we were on the streets. We talked to people. We said, “No, we’re not only just voting for now. We want to know. We want hope. We don’t want to repeat the same formulas from the past because we’ve seen these white-collar lawyers becoming presidents of Brazil.” And the story was always the same.
We were talking about people like, “Do you recognize this Lula? This Lula, this man is kind of your grandpa.” Many aspects of his life became highlighted, especially becoming a person with a disability due to a work accident. That caught everyone’s attention, this mass of voters’ attention, that we were not just talking about a candidate, we were talking about a country’s project, a sovereignty project. Coincidentally, Flávio escaped to Brazil, he ran away from Brazil on Lula’s birthday, so it became a double meme because here everyone started to make videos saying, “Oh, I proclaim myself the best podcaster, the best mother, the best actress.” It became a meme because this man fled the country with the support of allegedly the Argentinian government of Milei, of course with Trump’s support as well, and it is being investigated at this point that the jet that he flew on is part of a company that is part of a much bigger drug dealing scheme in South America that is once again repeating the trend of these far-rights to be involved with all sorts of organized crime.
He withdrew his declaration of being Brazil’s president, but at that point, people had already checked whether that was written in Brazil or not. He even mistook the Brazilian symbol, like the Brazil symbol for a shield of arms, and they had discovered that he had made that letter on ChatGPT. It’s a done joke, I mean, this guy, but we still have massive challenges at this point. We’ve seen an increase of political violence against local communities, the maroon communities, the indigenous communities, not just being threatened, but being shot, being run over. We saw police officers that ran over motorcycles that were making with Lula’s flag. We’re starting to see companies saying they will lay off all their employees that had supported Lula. We have a regulation that prevents all that. We’re seeing an increase in the reports of this kind of political discrimination. It’s just the beginning of a huge challenge. But somehow the sensation, the feeling that we’re having, the vibes of Brazil that we’re having is that we’re having a people that is much more connected, much with their eyes wide open to understand that it’s not just a victory. This is not just the beginning. This is just the beginning of everything, you know.
[Speaker 1:] Yeah. I mean, indeed it is. So, I want to ask you, all that aside, all the excitement and positivity aside, even though Lula won, he faces an extremely conservative Congress, right? What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge of Lula’s upcoming term? What is it that he’s seeking to accomplish in his final term as president? And then I would add to that, what obstacles do you think he’ll face? What role will the movements in Brazil play in this battle between a conservative Congress and Lula’s presidency?
[Speaker 2:] Well, he has been saying throughout this campaign that these four years were years to rebuild the country, rebuild the Brazilian state, Brazilian government because in reality Bolsonaro had really destroyed the health ministry, all the departments, education, everything was absolutely destroyed, dismantled. Even, for instance, our Brazilian ministry for foreign relations or current foreign affairs ministry. He had been, he’s a man with over 30 years of diplomacy, he had been allocated to the library of the building of foreign affairs. So, people like public servants that had dedicated their entire lives, all that was dismantled and now we would then start to rebuild it.
The Congress is absolutely conservative. The oldest wave of social media and participation and left-wing positioning, everyone like artists, everyone entrepreneurs started to say, “No, I am a left-wing person.” All that started between the first and the second round, but all the congresspeople, governors, state assemblies, all that had already been elected for the first round. So, this is a very conservative spectrum of what conservative can mean. We have women against women’s vote that had been elected as a representative. We have workers against labor rights.
To overcome that, of course, we’ll have to maintain ourselves engaged. I think with what we’re seeing right now, especially with the attacks against indigenous communities, somehow on social media, we’re still very active. So, this is a good rhythm. We’re trying to create muscle to these efforts, but we’ll have to keep on doing the experiencing and doing what we have seen that works. That is this grassroots engagement. This is something that we want to fight against this conservative Congress and we’re seeing more people wanting to be part of movements, wanting to be part of left-wing parties. This will be absolutely important and what we want is to build a really sovereign state project.
We’re talking about social media regulation already. That is an absolute priority for now. We’re talking about transforming many of these public policies into state policies so they can’t be varied throughout each government. We’re talking about the protection of these local and indigenous communities. We’re talking about mineral sovereignty because we just started talking about having a state-owned company that would organize the exploitation and marketing of our minerals, especially rare earths, lithium, and niobium. We have big reserves and we want to use that to make sure that our country will be developed for the people.
We’re already seeing governors, for instance, increasing taxes because here the taxation for fuel is state-defined. We’re already seeing conservative right-wing governors increasing the taxes of fuel to create obstacles for the reduction of food prices that would start. It’s a legal battle, but definitely a mobilization battle. At the same time, we’re seeing governors and mayors that had reduced the bus circulation during Sunday, the voting day, and they are now already suffering some sort of opposition or impeachment processes in the city halls and on the city councils.
It is to combine the presence of those who have got to the congresses and state assemblies and city councils to combine their action with social media presence but also talking to people. It is, I mean, it seems we’re experimenting a methodology that had been told to us by Russian revolutionaries, but here we are well 110 years later saying, well, who would have known if it worked on imperialist Russia, it can work in your country in 2026. But we’re just to give another really horrible fact that we’re seeing. We’ve seen congresspeople, state and federal congresspeople who were elected saying that, oh, we should start painting the stores and any places, the entrepreneurships painted with a red star so they can be identified as left-wing. And they said that, like even the Jewish community went and said, “Well, this is literally fascism.” So, it’s talking about history, talking and we’re seeing even these influencers like makeup, fashion influencers saying, “Hey, you should read Carol P to talk about feminism. You should read Helena that is a Japanese Brazilian feminist.” So, it’s the start of something new but it’s a much broader horizon than what we would have experienced if we had lost these elections.
[Speaker 1:] No, and I think that’s extremely important. I wanted to dig into this point which you’ve brought up a couple of times now, I think, with regards to this agitation and propaganda, this tool that had been very refined in this electoral victory. We’ve seen many reports now coming out over the past several days. Even the New York Times is very interested in this concept of Lula’s army and the WhatsApp channels. So, let’s talk about how this victory happened, how it was achieved. Again, when you were on this program before this second round, you spoke about these massive street mobilizations, the mobilization of people on social media. Let’s first talk about how people were activated and mobilized, what role that played, and what does it tell us about the possibility of defeating the right-wing in Latin America and across the world.
[Speaker 2:] Yeah. So, that was an initiative that one congressman called Jean Wyllys started. He’s been on social media, has been talking about that for quite a while now, but it kind of caught up. Everyone said, “Well, let’s do what we can do.” I think what that created, and I think that’s one of the biggest lessons learned, is that it created a possibility for you that cannot leave your house to go to a demonstration. Or you that is a bit more low profile on social media, everyone could do something to take the campaign a bit further. So, it is to invite one person. You don’t have to make a video, but if you can, you should. But if you can’t make a video, you can upload one of the videos that he would send there.
This was a big lesson learned that it is to create tools in which each person can individually contribute according to their possibilities because not everyone can or feels comfortable to go to a demonstration or even think that a demonstration is important. When the victory happened, I live in São Paulo, we went to Paulista, which is this huge avenue that usually appears on international reports, and the subways were already taken by people. On Saturday, we had a massive demonstration, and we had people from all over the place. I think that also kind of shifted. I think that when everyone saw that they could contribute by sending one text message, by uploading their WhatsApp status or putting on stories or sharing reels, that kind of brought people closer to this whole big purpose.
I think that was a very important element and it’s still happening, of course, not in the rhythm that we were, but we had daily tasks, literally daily tasks. We’re seeing already there is a militancy for the French elections that is coming up. It is a daily task thing, one thing you do, you can share this, you must comment that, you share that on your story, whatever. That created this idea that you were part of something. I think that’s another element that we talk about for a really long time on the left wing. It is how to promote collectivity, how to make people feel part of something. That stimulated and made the demonstrations become bigger and bigger. During that last week, we saw demonstrations here in São Paulo, a huge city, but we also saw in small cities, like cities with 4,000 inhabitants, they would have a demonstration there with 150, 200 people. So, this kind of simulation, this kind of thing already helps, but overall, I think this collectivity idea gave a pathway but also to talk about the future, to talk about hope, to talk about winning. It’s not only just, oh, we’ll overcome him, but we’ll also win.
Another element that was absolutely important, especially considering that we reversed the first round results in very important states, especially Minas Gerais, it is a very defining state. I know in the US you have those states that if you win in these states, you’ll win the elections. Here, it’s the same. We have it with Minas. What we saw is to spread out the information about these right-wing guys. So, Flávio Bolsonaro is just one of them that is involved in all sorts of crime. We started to say here that he saw the criminal code and thought it was a to-do list. I mean, he keeps on committing crimes. We started to talk about that and to talk about that he’s a person that is involved with what’s the worst for our society, that is what is happening in every country at this point. All of these right-wing people, they are involved with some sort of criminal network or drug trafficking or sex trafficking, people trafficking, gun, all that. They are always involved because this is who they are. To talk about that was also very important. We had tasks to talk about Lula, but also to report, to denounce, to say who these people really are.
I think that was, it’s so important that some of these congresspeople and governors and mayors who were involved somehow in trying to prevent people from getting to the ballot locations, they are already escaping as well. They are already fleeing the country. They left the cities. So, this combination of denouncing their crimes, they always have a vast list of crimes, denouncing that we are even joking here. We’re the ones who are the patriots. We’re the ones defending families. We’re the ones defending everything that our country has. This is a very important element too, that it is to give this national content to what we’re saying, the protection of the population. These combination of these messages were also very defining to get the results that we got and to open this horizon from now on because we’re the ones talking about family defense, about defending the country. As you know, this is the commitment we said that we would accomplish. So, here we are accomplishing those. This has been a very important experience in this wave.
[Speaker 1:] Well, lastly, we wanted to ask you about somebody who’s still making some headlines for his outrageous behavior, and that’s Flávio Bolsonaro, who’s now in Miami. He said to media that he is being persecuted, that his father is a political prisoner, and that he plans to return to Brazil, though notably he’s walked back the claim that he’s the legitimate president of Brazil, which he had initially said in a statement. But instead now he’s saying that he’s the leader. What do you think comes next? Is there fear of a struggle over the legitimacy of the elections? Will we see an attempted coup-like situation like in 2022 when these angry Bolsonaro voters attempted to overturn the results? How are social movements preparing for this right-wing response?
[Speaker 2:] This is another lesson that we had learned with our neighboring countries, but once again they’re right. It is for those who attend against the sovereignty of your country. Those must be judged and if needed imprisoned. Those who took part during those that took could attend in 2022. They have responded to criminal lawsuits and they are now either imprisoned or accomplishing their felons just like Jair Bolsonaro. It’s not very new that when the right wing loses an election, they say that it was fraud. They started doing that in 2014 when Dilma was elected in a very tight election as well, but she was elected once again. But again, it’s something that they do because they can’t accept any sort of democracy. Flávio keeps coming up and down. The thing is he is being investigated as being a key member of a very large financial scandal, financial crime against Brazilian and a lot of retirement funds in Brazil, and also being part of other more common illegal networks.
Part of his escape has to do with the fact that because he was part of the Congress, part of the Senate, he still is until the end of the year. But because he will lose that, he will lose the privilege of being judged only at the superior and the Supreme Court. When he loses that privilege, he will be judged by a regular court, regular justices. So that will definitely increase the possibilities of him paying for the crimes because that financial scandal that he was part of also included Marquez even allegedly. We do see the possibility of him literally running away just like his brother that still lives in the US that is being prosecuted here in Brazil for the coup attempts as well.
For the next four years, we do expect some attempts in trying to delegitimize this government, but we’re preparing ourselves. At this point right now, we’re living those known glory days, but we know that we have a very rough path ahead of us. By organizing, by creating all these possibilities to organize, to create all the possibilities for people to give their contribution in the smallest portions that they can. This is a lesson that we learned and that we’ll take on because we know that they will try to attempt against everything that we are, even because this is what they’ve been doing. His party, Flávio’s party, had recognized Lula’s victory, like all the right-wing parties recognized, the electoral court recognized. So here in Brazil, this claim of fraud is pacified. We do not have this claim being sustained here in any legal or even political substance.
But how will they use this narrative to, in the next few years, create a very hostile environment to Lula’s government? This is something that we know will happen. We still don’t know how, but we are going to prepare ourselves. We’ve seen hard days. This is not the first time we’ll see Congress trying to attempt a president, and we will learn from our difficulties. We’ll learn our lessons, but we’ll learn especially because somehow we want to make sure that this democracy is the frontier of democracy and to keep on sending out to the entire world that you can, no matter how big or how small your country is, you must dream and fight for democracy. This is an absolute, this is what we want to be, and this is the message that we want. We want to create a new era for all of those people’s strugglers and people’s fighters around the world because it will be worth it. Oh, the victory is wonderful.
[Speaker 1:] Well, we can feel the great vibes from here. Ana Júlia, thank you so much again for joining us today, explaining exactly how in three weeks this election was turned around. We’ll be sure to check back with you soon. Of course, Lula is inaugurated on January 1st and thus will begin a period of intense struggle on the streets, in Congress, and in all the other realms of society. So, we’ll be sure to bring you back then.
[Speaker 2:] Thank you so much for inviting me.
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