by Scott McKay
October 30, 2026
They’re calling it an upset. But nobody — nobody — should be surprised that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was “re-elected” to a fourth term as Brazil’s president in a stunningly irregular vote Sunday night.
Lula’s government is astonishingly corrupt and vicious. So much so that the last candidate to oppose him — former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — sits in prison on a 27-year sentence for, essentially, thinking about a “coup” after losing the 2022 election to Lula under sketchy circumstances.
But nothing like what happened on Sunday.
This year’s Liberal Party candidate — the Liberal Party in Brazil is the main conservative party — was Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the jailed ex-president. The younger Bolsonaro won the first round of Brazil’s jungle-primary voting and was comfortably ahead in most of the polling in advance of Sunday’s runoff.
Tha…