Two election results showed how nations as different as Brazil and Serbia can make up their own minds. In both, citizens came out against candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump.
In Brazil the left wing candidate, Lula, won a surprise victory in a second round run-off against Flávio Bolsonaro.
Lula, a trade unionists and environmentalist was standing for his fourth term. Yet he managed to win, against all expectations. President Trump endorsed his challenger, Bolsonaro, calling him a “great friend” and saying Brazil was lucky to have him.
As Reuters reported: “Two US State Department officials led a campaign to restore the right-wing Bolsonaro clan to power in Brazil and successfully pushed for sanctions aimed at tilting the election in their favor, according to 10 current and former US officials with direct knowledge of the matter.”
It didn’t work.
Meanwhile, in Serbia, another Trump endorsed candidate lost to an even more unlikely opposition alliance.
A student alliance ousted long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić who admitted defeat to a student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections. Vučić had been in power since 2017.
“The people have won! The people defeated a dictator! The people will lead Serbia!” Nebojsa Cosic told Reuters as people in the street linked arms to dance the traditional Serbian folk dance, Kolo.
These reverses for Trump endorsed candidates comes just months after an equally dramatic election result.
The Hungarian election in April saw Viktor Orbán lose power after 16 years of dictatorial rule.
Five days before Hungarians vote in elections that could bring down Viktor Orbán after 16 years in office, US Vice-President JD Vance intervened in the campaign to give the Hungarian prime minister a ringing endorsement.
As a legal website commented in a headline: U.S. Meddling in European Domestic Politics Is Backfiring
A reversal for Vladimir Putin as well
The Russian president is also accused of attempting to intervene in multiple foreign elections – including in Britain.
This is a commentary after the Serbian results were announced.
Aleksandar Vučić has long aligned his country with Russia, backing them in various diplomatic fields and refusing to cooperate with sanctions placed on the rogue nation – defying EU instructions in the process. But, after losing Orban in Hungary earlier this year, Putin is running out of friends on the continent.
This story is, of course, not over. Neither Putin nor Trump are likely to stop their interventions. Trump has already endorsed Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu for Tuesday’s election. Let’s see how that goes.
