Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday in a shockingly tight poll to become the next president of the country. US President Joe Biden congratulated Lula da Silva on his election win.

“I send my congratulations to Luiz Incio Lula da Silva on his election to be the next president of Brazil following free, fair, and credible elections,” Biden said in a statement.

“I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead,” he said.

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Da Silva defeated Bolsonaro in the runoff election with 50.9% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 49.1%. 

The 77-year-old was incarcerated in 2018 owing to a corruption case and so was not allowed to vote in the 2018 election that brought Bolsonaro, a follower of conservative social beliefs, to power.

Da Silva vowed to govern beyond his leftist Workers’s Party. His victory is the first time since Brazil’s 1985 return to democracy that the sitting president has failed to win reelection.

Independent political analyst Thomas Traumann compared the outcomes to those in the United States. 

“The huge challenge that Lula has will be to pacify the country,” he said. “People are not only polarized on political matters, but also have different values, identity and opinions. What’s more, they don’t care what the other side’s values, identities and opinions are.”

Da Silva won the first-round elections on October 2 with 48% of the vote. He said in May 2021 that he will challenge Jair Bolsonaro for the third term as president of Brazil in the general election of 2022. 

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Lula da Silva had said earlier this year that he would likely only serve one term if he wins back the presidency.

“I’m not going to be a president of the republic who is thinking about his reelection,” he said in an interview with Metropole Radio in the northeastern state of Bahia. “I’m going to be a president who is going to be thinking about governing this country for four years and leaving it looking great.”

He said he would have “four years in which I want to dedicate every minute to see if we can do in four years more than I did in eight.”

He added later: “I dream that when we get to December 31, 2026, when we hand over the mandate to someone else, this country will be thriving, growing.”