DOMINANT ANGLE
Beijing takes away from Lula's re-election the continuity of a government that is a partner of China and the formula of a Brazil that is "nobody's backyard", more than Flávio Bolsonaro's contestation.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
According to the Superior Electoral Court cited by CGTN, Lula wins with 51.79% of valid votes against 48.21% for Flávio Bolsonaro (99.99% counted).
- 02
Lula, who will be sworn in on January 5, 2027, asserts that Brazil is "nobody's backyard" and wants to strengthen digital regulation after foreign interference.
- 03
The SCMP notes that no candidate trailing in the first round had won a runoff since 1989 and that the outgoing government oversaw record Chinese investments.
ANALYSIS
Beijing, October 26, 2026. Chinese media are treating the re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as an event that is first and foremost regional and diplomatic. CGTN, the international channel of public television, announces that the outgoing president, a candidate for the Workers' Party, won the second round on Sunday, October 25, according to the results of the Superior Electoral Tribunal published on Sunday evening. With 99.99% of the ballots counted, Lula garnered 51.79% of the valid votes against 48.21% for Flávio Bolsonaro, the candidate for the Liberal Party and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. CGTN specifies that Lula will be sworn in on January 5, 2027, for a four-year term, his fourth presidential election victory.
The channel reports on the victory speech delivered in São Paulo. Lula promises to work with the conservative Congress elected by the population and to involve citizens more in decision-making. CGTN emphasizes another passage: the president stressed the need to strengthen digital regulation after, he says, defeating foreign interference through online platforms, affirming that Brazil is "no one's backyard". The phrase is repeated verbatim in the Chinese account, without detailing the nature of this interference.
The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong daily, chooses a performance-based electoral angle: an unprecedented "remontada". Lula was behind in the first round, and no candidate who was behind after the first round had won a second round since the system was adopted in 1989. The newspaper describes Flávio Bolsonaro as an ally of Trump and a right-wing senator, and mainly links the victory to bilateral economics: it extends, according to him, a government that has overseen record Chinese investments.
The loser's contestation is mentioned, but briefly. CGTN indicates that Flávio Bolsonaro, speaking from Brasília, deemed it "impossible" to recognize the results and called for the annulment of the election. The article title, "Bolsonaro refuses to concede", is placed as a subtitle to the account of the victory. The articles in the corpus do not detail the legal arguments of the appeal, the extension of the vote, or the reaction of the markets.
The Chinese account thus opens with three elements: the legitimacy of the result established by the official electoral authority, Brazil's digital and political sovereignty in the face of external pressures, and the continuation of an economic relationship favorable to Beijing. The question of Brazilian institutional stability remains in the background.
