00:00And also one day after the victory of Lula, we go live once more to Rio de Janeiro with our
00:05special envoy, Belen de los Santos.
00:07Hello, Bel. What do you have for us at this hour?
00:11Hello, Ale. Well, it's such a pleasure to meet you once more here from Rio de Janeiro with the aftermath
00:17of this historic election.
00:19We have been truly following not only what is happening here, the repercussions across the world.
00:24You were just talking about some of the messages that are coming and analysis.
00:30For example, we saw earlier today the message and the gesture from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and so many others,
00:39right,
00:39that are not only greeting the victory of Lula de Silva as its commonality between the heads of states,
00:47but also just highlighting the importance of this for the region.
00:51I wanted to share with you just two things.
00:54First, some of the numbers that make this victory so historic, because we're saying that it was such an important
01:05achievement.
01:06But to put in contrast and so that the audience can truly understand,
01:10first of all, Lula de Silva with this election broke a record being the president that was elected in Brazil
01:20with the highest amount of votes, over 64 million votes.
01:25That is the most amount of votes that a president for Brazil elected has ever gotten.
01:32So that is the first record.
01:34But also, he got 10, over 10 million votes in the last three weeks.
01:40So the difference between that first round and the second round meant an enormous increase beyond what any analysis could
01:49expect.
01:50But also, and how did he do this?
01:52Because we've been talking so much during this week about the importance of the people who had not gone to
01:59vote
02:00and calling them over for the election, how Lula de Silva could win support on that regard.
02:06And also capturing the votes of the third, fourth and fifth candidates in the first round,
02:12although they were ideologically not so close to what Lula de Silva represents,
02:18still trying to appeal to those voters.
02:21Well, let me tell you, Ale, that from the people who had not gone out to vote in the first
02:27round,
02:27more than 2 million decided to do so.
02:30And a majority of those went and voted for Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva.
02:35But also, there was a lot of the other votes that were around, both going to the third, fourth and
02:43fifth candidates in the first round.
02:44And also those who had voted no or had voted as a blank vote, they also decided to shift that
02:52vote and vote for Lula.
02:55With all of this, he managed to turn around the election, of course, at the national level.
03:00But that was billed by a turnaround that meant one state, only one state, majority had voted for Flavio Bolsonaro
03:11in the first round
03:12and shifted to Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva in the second round.
03:18That state is Minas Gerais.
03:20And it is important because political analysts here in Brazil, those journalists who follow the election,
03:26know that Minas Gerais is a state that is particularly followed and analyzed by journalists, by researchers,
03:36because it has been a trend for the past elections that whoever Minas Gerais chooses as president is the one
03:45elected for the entire nation.
03:47It is the state that has had, of course, it's just a statistic number, right?
03:51There's no rule regarding that, but it is a fact that that has been happening.
03:57And, curiously, it's the only state that shifted from the first round to the second.
04:04So, maintaining that trend that Minas Gerais is the state, one of the largest states in terms of the electorate,
04:12after Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the one that chose its presidency.
04:15But, besides that one state, Lula de Silva shifted the vote and turned around the election in over 210 cities.
04:26So, that is the amount of activism, of mobilization.
04:31When we were saying during the past weeks that there were a lot of activity on the ground,
04:37people going out, speaking, starting up conversations, thinking about different ways in order to do this,
04:44with all the important electoral campaigns that also happened, with the activity and social networks as well,
04:52well, that had one objective and it manifested itself in that turnaround in over 210 cities.
05:00So, that is a little bit of the numbers to understand this election, but also, Alex, the importance for the
05:07region.
05:07It is a country that's facing an election where a candidate was proposing a complete alignment with the United States.
05:16We know that the Bolsonaro family stands for that.
05:19One of the Bolsonaro sons is actually in the United States.
05:24We have had, during the past year, this controversy over the tariffs
05:30and how they had asked for more tariffs for Brazil in order to pressure the government of Lula de Silva.
05:39Well, that candidate did not win.
05:42And in a region and in a context in which the United States is increasing pressure on the region,
05:49with a designed plan that has as the main objective to enforce that control,
05:54the fact that this election went the other way around, it is of major importance for the entire region.
06:01Bell, also, Lula has the challenge now of governing for the whole population of Brazil,
06:09regardless of political ideologies.
06:12I want to ask you, what are the people saying about their expectations regarding the future of the country?
06:21Well, I think that we need to first understand that we continue to be at a very polarized society, right?
06:28You're talking about a two-point difference in this election is a lot because of where it came from, right?
06:35You were two-point difference below and you went to two-point difference above,
06:39so that is a large, large gap, much larger, much larger, Alea, I don't know if you can hear me,
06:47much larger than the one that was for the 2022 election, for example,
06:53but it is still a very divided society.
06:56However, this election managed to catch the attention and to catch the vote of many
07:02who were not strictly aligned with Lula de Silva.
07:05This is important.
07:06Every person who did not vote for Lula de Silva in the first round and now decided to vote in
07:12the second round
07:13is someone who is saying that they do not want the return of the far right to the country,
07:18but they also want to see more achievements and they will have more demands of the current government as well.
07:26So that process of mobilization, that is why Mr. Lula de Silva has said that he is shifting his way
07:31of government
07:32now that he will be closer to the basis, closer to the leadership, closer to what the people are demanding
07:39and we will definitely see he will have a far right government, a far right Congress, I'm sorry.
07:46So definitely that will be the main challenge.
07:48The far right Congress and the people on the streets giving legitimacy to this new mandate of Lula de Silva.
07:56Thank you very much, we will keep in contact with you throughout the day to know more details in this
08:01post electoral victory
08:02for President Lula.
08:05Thank you so much, Ellen.
