Representative image. Lula Oficial, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
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Why it matters
Brazil is one of India's partners in BRICS and the G20, and Lula's win keeps the government that set a $30 billion trade goal with India in office for another term. Trade between the two was $15.07 billion in 2025-26, with medicines, chemicals and machinery named as areas to grow. Reaching the $30 billion goal by 2030 would need roughly 15% to 19% growth a year.
The Brazil election result is in: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won a fourth term, beating the right-wing senator Flávio Bolsonaro in the run-off held on Sunday, 25 October 2026. With all votes counted, Lula took 51.79% to Bolsonaro’s 48.21%, a lead of about 4.4 million votes, The Guardian reported. Bolsonaro has refused to concede and says he will ask for the result to be annulled.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Lula on X on Monday, calling him “my dear friend” and saying he looked forward to deepening the India-Brazil Strategic Partnership, according to the news agency ANI (Asian News International). For India, the result keeps in office the government that agreed a $30 billion target for India Brazil trade.
Brazil election result: how Lula came back from second place
Lula, who is 80 and turns 81 on Tuesday, finished second to Bolsonaro in the first round in early October. No candidate who came second in a first round had gone on to win the run-off since Brazil returned to democracy in the 1980s, The Guardian noted. ANI, citing the US news channel CNN (Cable News Network), put it the same way for elections since 1989.
The final gap was 3.58 percentage points, NewsPlainly’s subtraction of the two final shares. It came down to who turned up.
The share of registered voters who stayed away fell from a record 21.08% in the first round to 19.21% in the run-off, according to The Guardian. Lula’s allies had counted on this: his voters tend to live further from polling stations and were more likely to miss the first vote, the paper reported.
In his victory speech in São Paulo, Lula called the result “a defeat for denialism”. In a later post on X, quoted by ANI, he said Brazil “is no one’s backyard” and that his side had defeated foreign interference run through digital platforms.
Why Flávio Bolsonaro wants the vote annulled
Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, told supporters it was “impossible to concede” and said his lawyers would seek to have the election annulled, The Guardian reported. His complaint is about voting hours. Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extended voting on Sunday by two hours, to 7 pm, and Bolsonaro called that decision unacceptable.
Both camps had asked for longer voting hours, though. ANI reported that the extension followed last-minute requests from both candidates, and The Guardian said Bolsonaro’s own campaign was among those that asked the electoral court for it. The Guardian’s report did not say whether a petition had been filed yet.
Flávio Bolsonaro is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who lost to Lula in 2022 and is now serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of plotting a coup, according to The Guardian. The elder Bolsonaro is living under house arrest in Brasília.
Lula fourth term: 37 years of presidential runs
Lula’s first presidential run and his latest win are 37 years apart. This timeline is built from The Guardian’s and ANI’s reports.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1989, 1994, 1998 | Lost three presidential bids |
| 2002 | Won; Brazil’s first elected working-class president |
| 2006 | Re-elected for a second straight term |
| 2010 | Stepped down after two terms; ally Dilma Rousseff succeeded him |
| 2022 | Beat the sitting president, Jair Bolsonaro |
| 2026 | Beat Flávio Bolsonaro in the 25 October run-off, 51.79% to 48.21% |
ANI reported that by the end of this term Lula will have been in power for 16 years, the longest in Brazil’s democratic history. A former factory worker and union leader, he also spent more than a year in prison on corruption convictions that were later annulled.
What Lula’s win means for India Brazil trade
Both countries belong to BRICS, the group named after Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and both sit in the G20. Modi’s message spoke of working together on “the shared priorities of the Global South”, a common term for developing countries.
The numbers behind India Brazil trade come from India’s commerce ministry. After a meeting of the India-Brazil Trade Monitoring Mechanism in Brasília at the end of August, the ministry said trade between the two countries reached $15.07 billion in 2025-26. Both sides restated a goal of $30 billion by 2030, with pharmaceuticals, chemicals, engineering goods and machinery named as the areas to grow.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| India-Brazil trade, 2025-26 | $15.07 billion |
| Target by 2030 | $30 billion |
| Growth needed if reached in 4 years | about 19% a year |
| Growth needed if reached in 5 years | about 15% a year |
| India-MERCOSUR trade, 2025 | $20.84 billion |
How the growth rates were worked out: doubling from $15.07 billion to $30 billion means multiplying trade by about 1.99. Spread over four years of compound growth, that is about 18.8% a year; over five years, about 14.8%. The ministry did not say which base year the target counts from, so both are shown. They describe what the goal requires, not a forecast.
MERCOSUR is the South American trade bloc that includes Brazil. India already has a preferential trade agreement with the bloc, and the commerce ministry said both sides want to settle the terms for widening it soon. The same statement mentioned a medicines regulators’ agreement signed in February 2026 between India’s CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) and Brazil’s health regulator ANVISA, which the ministry linked to better market access for Indian medicines.
What Indian politicians said
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on X that Lula’s win had implications for BRICS and would strengthen Brazil’s push for a world with several centres of power, ANI reported. He also said Brazil’s ties with Washington would be a challenge, since the United States had openly backed Lula’s rival.
The Guardian described the result as a setback for US President Donald Trump, the Bolsonaro family’s most important foreign ally. Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Paraguay’s Santiago Peña were among the Latin American leaders who congratulated Lula on Sunday night.
The annulment request is the open question hanging over the Brazil election result. Bolsonaro has said he will go to court; how the electoral authorities respond, and when, was not clear from the reports available on Monday morning.
Frequently asked questions
Who won the Brazil election 2026?
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the run-off on 25 October 2026 with 51.79% of the vote against Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.21%, with all votes counted, The Guardian reported.
Has Flávio Bolsonaro accepted the result?
No. He said it was impossible to concede and that his lawyers would seek annulment, citing a two-hour extension of voting. Reports say both campaigns had asked for longer voting hours.
What did PM Modi say about Lula's win?
On 26 October Modi congratulated Lula on X, called him a dear friend and said he looked forward to deepening the India-Brazil Strategic Partnership and Global South cooperation.
How much trade do India and Brazil do?
India's commerce ministry put bilateral trade at $15.07 billion in 2025-26. The two governments aim to reach $30 billion by 2030.