Democracy Wins in Brazil and Serbia

Lula pulls off a shocking comeback in Brazil, a leaderless student movement topples Serbia’s autocrat, and Israeli voters go to the polls for the first time since the October 7th attacks.

Tommy and Ben break down Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s stunning runoff victory over Flávio Bolsonaro, including a 10-million-person WhatsApp army and 3 million new second-round voters, and look ahead to what a final Lula term will mean for the Brazilian left, the Amazon, and foreign policy. Then an even more extraordinary story from Serbia, where the end of President Aleksandar Vučić’’s 12-year grip on power proves that a protest movement can force change. Israeli voters just finished casting ballots in record numbers, and the guys explain the process ahead, the stakes, and why Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly tried to provoke Iran into striking Israel in the final days of the campaign. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado returns from exile, and it might have something to do with the midterm elections in the US. And the UAE nominates a Palestinian diplomat to be the next UN Secretary-General, which sounds like good news until you look at the UAE’s human rights record. At the end of the show, Ben talks to Pedro Telles, a program director at D-Hub, about the view from the ground in São, Brazil, and the tactics Lula’s campaign used that progressive campaigns around the world can learn from.

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