Lula wins historic fourth term in Brazil election

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a fourth term in Sunday's runoff, the electoral court said, while his opponent, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, refused to concede and said he would seek to have the result annulled.
Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, cited a Sunday ruling by a Supreme Court justice that extended voting by two hours. He led the first round but lost the runoff by more than 4 million votes. Financial markets had bet on his victory.
Jair Bolsonaro never accepted his 2022 defeat by Lula and was later sentenced by the Supreme Court to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup.
Analysts said annulment was unlikely. Flavio Bolsonaro's losing margin was more than twice his father's, and his own campaign had also sought an extension because of rain in the conservative-leaning south. Mario Braga, a Latin America analyst at risk consultancy RANE, said there could be right-wing protests in the coming days, but "it's very improbable that it will lead to the reversal of the result."
A Tokyo-listed exchange-traded fund tracking the Bovespa index fell nearly 15% in Asian trade, and the Brazilian real was set to drop sharply against the US dollar. Investors expect recent bets on a change of government to unwind this week.
Lula, 80, was jailed from 2018 to 2019 on corruption charges that were later overturned, which cleared the way for him to beat Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. He is the first candidate since Brazil's return to democracy in the 1980s to win after finishing second in the first round.
Pollsters said better-than-expected turnout helped Lula. Leonardo Barreto, co-founder of consultancy Think Policy, said voters were choosing between "change, with some apprehension, and a known path, which guarantees certain rights."
During the campaign, Lula pointed to falling poverty and inequality, and to record lows in unemployment, illiteracy and deforestation during his third term. He warned that Bolsonaro would cut welfare spending and hand Brazil's sovereignty to US President Donald Trump, whose State Department led a campaign to return the Bolsonaros to power. Late pledges included free nationwide weekend public transport, which must still be submitted to Congress, and a 15% rise in his flagship welfare programme. There was no immediate comment from Trump or  the State Department. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Latin American leaders congratulated Lula.
He now faces the most conservative Congress since the 1980s. Bolsonaro's Liberal Party and its allies could control more than 280 seats in the lower house and up to 50 in the Senate, enough for opposition majorities in both chambers.