The election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last month has been celebrated across Brazil, and the world.

It was one of the most violent elections in Brazil’s recent history, with cases of politically motivated attacks against candidates, officials, government workers since 2020, according to the Observatory of Political and Electoral Violence. There were several cases of intimidation, threats and even killings of ordinary citizens.

After the results came in supporters of the defeated candidate, outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro, blocked hundreds of roads across the country and surrounded army bases to demand a military coup. But in the favelas, in the Amazon, in the poorest neighbourhoods of the country, social justice activists are anticipating a new era. ‘I think the main thing is the respect and defence of religious freedom,’ says Rennan Leta, a journalist and social media influencer from the Alto da Boa Vista favela in northern Rio de Janeiro.

Full article at New Internationalist’s website. Date of publication: 02/12/2022.