Brazil former president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva defeats incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election

Brazil has taken a turn to the left as former president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva defeats far-right incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election.

After a divisive campaign that saw two bitter rivals on opposite sides of the political spectrum go head to head, Lula won 50.9% of the votes which was enough to beat Bolsonaro, whose supporters had been confident of victory.

It was a stunning comeback for a politician who could not run in the last presidential election in 2018 because he was in jail and banned from standing for office after he had been found guilty of receiving a bribe from a Brazilian construction firm in return for contracts with Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras.

Lula spent 580 days in jail before his conviction was annulled and he returned to the political fray.