Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.

Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.

Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.

Live results here via Brazil's UOL.

The fifth plenum comes against a backdrop of years of purges that have had some analysts wondering if the issue is corruption or a lack of loyalty

When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he pledged to stamp out corruption all through the ranks of the Communist party. More than a decade later, the pace of investigations has not slowed. Last year, China’s disciplinary authorities opened investigations into more than 1 million people, including more than 100 officials at or above ministerial or provincial level.

As Chinese Communist party (CCP) officials prepare for an important meeting this week discipline – and party loyalty – is high on the agenda. For those who try to read the tea leaves of elite Chinese politics, concern about the apparent lack of discipline is dominating CCP discussions.

The “fifth plenum” starts on Monday and is set to focus on “major issues on advancing the party’s full and rigorous self-governance”, according to a Chinese state media. In party-speak, “governance” is a byword for discipline, loyalty and anti-corruption.

As Xi continues to crack down on corruption, the fact that investigations nearly always result in a conviction begs the question over whether targets are truly guilty of corruption, or are they just political rivals to the people in charge.

SAO PAULO, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won an unprecedented fourth term on Sunday, the country's electoral court said, in a shock result that defied polls, precedent and global ​anti-incumbent sentiment to put the brakes on a wave of right-wing election victories across Latin America.

Earlier per Guardian

With nearly 75% of votes counted, It’s now 51% Lula and 48.9% Bolsonaro

Lula seems to be closing in on victory and the mood in his camp is increasingly excited.

This would be an absolutely sensational comeback from one of the biggest figures in the modern history of Latin American politics.

Edit: title was" Brazil's Lula overtakes Bolsonaro in runoff, with half of votes counted"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53598524

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes -- 51.8% of the total vote -- over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro. The announcement capped an evening of chaos at polling places across Brazil, following a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours. That decision by a Supreme Court justice may trigger legal action by Bolsonaro.

His triumph bucks a trend in Latin America where increasing numbers of right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump have been winning. Lula’s victory leaves Mexico and Brazil, Latin America’s two most populous nations, with left-of-center leaders. It also positions Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, to remain independent of the U.S., despite the pressure of increased tariffs imposed by Trump.

Serbia’s longtime nationalist strongman, Aleksandar Vucic, conceded defeat Sunday in a general election held after his once-tight grip on power was weakened by nearly two years of student-led street protests.

Serbia’s vote for a new Parliament came just six months after voters in neighboring Hungary rejected their own populist nationalist leader, Viktor Orban, a close ally of Mr. Vucic.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53594774

The election was seen as a referendum on Vučić’s political dominance and the political system that had been in place in Serbia for more than a decade.

Serbia has entered a new political era. The Student List has won the country's parliamentary election, marking a dramatic breakthrough for a movement that emerged from months of student protests and rapidly transformed itself into the country's most important political force.

In a brief statement to the nation, outgoing Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat and declared that the Student List has won the majority in parliament.

Vučić said that “based on the stratified sample, it is clear that we have lost the election,” adding that “the Student List has won and will have between 135 and 140 seats, while we will have around 105.

“No one else has entered parliament. The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) has won three seats, the Albanians one, and I think the SDA has also secured a seat,” he added.

The Serbian Progressive Party received around 1.72 million votes, admitted Vučić. The Student List won 2.2 million, giving it a majority of 52% to 32.3 %.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53599634

Four planeloads of soldiers from El Salvador landed in Haiti on Friday, days after the Central American nation’s president angrily threatened Haitian gangs that ambushed a group of Salvadoran soldiers over the past weekend who remain missing.

The four flights carrying 350 Salvadoran military landed a day after El Salvador sent 100 special forces troops to Haiti in response to the gang attack. One of the aircraft carrying the Salvadorans on Friday was a U.S. military plane. Two flights from the United States arrived in Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport on Friday as well, originating from Washington Dulles International Airport.

The flights were first reported by Haiti analyst Jake Johnston, an international researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The Miami Herald has learned that one of the aircraft carrying the Salvadoran troops, a U.S. C-130 military transport, was provided by the Pentagon at the request of the U.S. State Department. It was unclear Friday evening if the other three chartered flights carrying Salvadoran military, including a Boeing 737 that turned up unannounced before 10 p.m., had been provided by the U.S. government.

The arrival of the flights and the participation of U.S. military aircraft raises questions about whether the reaction of the president of El Salvador — a strategic economic and security partner of the United States — to the ambush of his troops is drawing Washington deeper into the armed crisis in Haiti.

As employees of Meta, we are disturbed by the revelations of the past few days and weeks regarding our management.

Since 2016, the political leanings of Meta executives and company leaders has been no secret.

But this is the first time to our knowledge that favours made to politicians such as the Bolsonaros have been programmatically made user-facing to such an obvious and biased extent.

The number of Palestinians killed today in Israeli bombardments across Gaza has risen to seven, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

We reported earlier that five people had been killed in strikes across Gaza: two in Khan Younis city, and three in attacks around the Islamic University campus in northern Gaza City.

Now, Wafa says that figure has risen to seven, as it reports two more deaths and a number of people “critically wounded” following a drone strike in the al-Mazraa area, east of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.