Cláudia Cavalieri

The Western media is already trying to rewrite the story of Lula’s victory. They want you to believe it was a triumph of broad democratic coalitions and institutional resilience. But the material reality on the ground tells a completely different story. Three weeks before the election, Lula was trailing in the polls. The algorithms were rigged against him. The cosmopolitan bourgeoisie that backed him in 2022 had abandoned him. So Lula stopped talking about abstract democracy and started talking about survival. He promised to cut the workweek from 44 to 40 hours. He targeted the crushing cost of public transport. He expanded the social wage. He stopped preaching to the liberal elites and started speaking directly to the factory floor and the favelas. And when the far-right took a two-point lead after the first round, the working class did what the working class always does when the system tries to erase them. They took the streets. The mobilizations on Avenida Paulista and across Brazil were the largest spontaneous left-wing uprisings in the country's history. This was not a campaign managed by political consultants. It was an organic explosion of the popular classes physically dragging their candidate across the finish line. This changes the entire calculus of Lula's fourth term. In 2022, he owed his victory to a broad coalition of elites who just wanted stability. In 2026, he owes his survival entirely to the streets. The empire threw tariffs, censorship, and disinformation at him, thinking the working class was too atomized to fight back. They forgot that when you push a population to the brink, they do not just vote. They mobilize. Lula does not owe this mandate to the algorithms, the media, or the bourgeoisie. He owes it to the workers who built the country. And the streets always collect their debts.