Far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro is defeated by left-wing ex-President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva in the deciding round of Brazil’s presidential vote.

Lula won 50.8% of all valid votes to nearly 49.2% for Bolsonaro

Lula says that Brazilian people want to live well, eat well, to have a job and access to education.

"Brazilian people want books instead of guns."

Brazilian people want to have hope again, he adds.

Brazil’s former leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has sealed an astonishing political comeback, beating the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in one of the most significant and bruising elections in the country’s history.

With 99% of votes counted, Silva, a former factory worker who became Brazil’s first working-class president exactly 20 years ago, had secured 50.8% of the vote. Bolsonaro, a firebrand who was elected in 2018, received 49.1%.

A few streets away on Paulista Avenue, one of the city’s main arteries, ecstatic Lula supporters gathered to celebrate his victory and the downfall of a radical rightwing president whose presidency produced an environmental tragedy and saw nearly 700,000 Brazilians die of Covid.