Lula da Silva: "We are going to win, this is just an extension"

Former President Lula da Silva with his wife, Rosangela, this Sunday night in São Paulo. NELSON ALMEIDA (AFP)

There has been victory, but not the one dreamed of.

The latest polls showed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with 50% of the valid votes, enough to avoid having to go to the second round, and the Brazilian left had begun to fantasize about celebrating in a big way this Sunday.

In the end it could not be.

The candidate of the left has obtained this Saturday something more than 48%, less than two points from the goal.

Even so, a smiling and joking Lula hid his disappointment during an appearance at the hotel in downtown São Paulo chosen as the campaign headquarters: "We are going to win, this is just an extension."

"It's already turned around!"

At last, Lula has taken the lead.

There are low-key cheers and fists to the sky from campaign staff.

It is not an explosion of joy, but something is something.

During the first three hours of the count, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro had led him by up to four points.

The atmosphere in the hotel was not gloomy, but neither was it as cheerful as it had been thought when the polling stations closed.

Fortunately, the vote in the northeast region, slower to be computed, has saved the night.

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Around 10:00 p.m., with almost all the votes counted, the politician appeared before the media, accompanied by his wife Janja da Silva, the vice-presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin and former president Dilma Rousseff, among others.

The projected message has been one of confidence in victory in the second round.

Lula has even allowed himself some joke.

“I had thought about going on my honeymoon, but that will have to wait.

Unfortunately for some, I have 30 more days to campaign.

I love going out on the street, getting on the trucks, talking to people...”, he declared.

In addition, he has recalled that he has not won in the first round in any of the six elections that he has contested.

The last one who achieved it was Fernando Henrique Cardoso at the end of the 90s.

In front of the hotel, the fences installed to keep the masses controlled have not been needed.

A handful of die-hard fans are disappointed by the setback.

“Four more weeks are going to be long.

Bolsonaro is going to have time to dismantle everything,” says Camila Lisboa, a 44-year-old architect, dressed in a red coat for the cold.

She has voted for Lula every time she has run, although she confesses that she did not like the corruption scandals involving the Workers' Party.

“A lot of people stopped voting for them because of that,” she explains.

Her father, for example, was always Lula's until he got fed up and now he is a convinced Bolsonarist.

The candidate's campaign had focused in recent weeks on convincing the undecided and making calls for a useful vote to scratch some support from the center.

“Turn the vote around”, has been the slogan, repeated a thousand times in electoral propaganda.

Patience, has been the response of citizens.

To explain the strength of Bolsonaro, who has obtained 43% despite the fact that the polls gave him 36%, some in Lula's headquarters pointed to the "embarrassed" voters, those who reveal another preference to the real one when they are asked about the pollsters.

The second round will be held on Sunday, October 30, within a month.

In that time, Lula will need to attract the votes of the center.

It will be key who Simone Tebet and Ciro Gomes decide to support, with 7% between the two.

They are candidates who have criticized him for the scandals of the past but who are more in tune with him than with Bolsonaro.

The activist Raimundo Bonfim, coordinator of the Central de Movimientos Populares, walks uneasily between the tables where the canapés are served.

He doesn't mean he's disappointed, but he is.

“There was hope of winning in the first round, but I was prepared for the second round,” he says.

Despite his confidence in a final victory for Lula, Bonfim affirms that the remaining month “is not going to be easy”.

He feels that the progressive middle classes were not sufficiently involved in the campaign and that explains the result.

"Now they really can't stay on the couch," he says.

“There is a risk that Bolsonaro will win.”

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