Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was once again elected for a four-year term. After spending 580 days in jail on corruption charges and having his chances of running for re-election in 2017 suspended, with charges later dismissed, Lula came back on top after an extremely violent election campaign that has divided Brazil.

The difference in votes between Lula and the runner-up, incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, was just over 2 million votes, with Lula winning by a huge margin in the northeast region and Bolsonaro winning by a large margin in the south, bringing to light Brazil’s old and deep-rooted regional prejudices.

In a speech just after election results, Lula spoke about reconciliation and uniting a divided Brazil, but he’s going to have a hard time achieving it. All over the country, in at least 25 states, truck drivers and other supporters of Bolsonaro staged demonstrations and blocked roads in an attempt to contest the outcome of the polls and force a coup. The blockades were broken up by security forces—in some cases with protesters shooting and beating police officers—but in several cities, supporters of the president remain camped in front of army barracks.

According to David Nemer, assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, there’s “a lot of mobilization on Telegram to paralyze the country, especially truck drivers, and to occupy public buildings with demonstrations. These guys don’t give up.”

It does not help democracy that Bolsonaro refused, for almost two days after election results, to acknowledge defeat or even make a statement of any kind. In a brief speech on Nov. 1, he thanked his followers, but refused to acknowledge his defeat. The president of his Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, declared not to recognize the election results. However, the transition process has already begun and even in the face of Bolsonaro’s intransigence, his ministers have already mobilized to facilitate the process.

Additionally, Bolsonaro managed to help elect a strong far right political base in Brazil’s Congress that will most probably oppose any policies coming from Lula’s new government and force hard negotiations with the so-called Centrão, or Big Center, a group of politicians and parties without a defined ideology and driven by financial interests.

Nobody knows if Bolsonaro will leave the government peacefully. After all, he has spent years threatening a coup and now that he lost, Bolsonaro must be more desperate than ever because he could go to jail after losing presidential immunity. Bolsonaro might face accusations of corruption, spreading false news and leaking sensitive investigative data.

It will take years, decades even, for Brazil to recover—and Lula has no room for error. The fear now is of an event happening, similar to the invasion of the Capitol, where a mob of far right fanatics could try to force a coup. The official discourse among Bolsonaro supporters is the same of Trump supporters: There was electoral fraud and that Bolsonaro, in fact, won the election.

But assuming everything goes smoothly, and Lula takes office without further confrontation, he’s inheriting a country whose economy is going through major problems, where citizens are facing hunger and huge debts loom—due to Bolsonaro’s inconsequential spending during the campaign season.

However, Lula will have the good will of most of the world’s democracies. President Joe Biden was quick to congratulate his victory and it is expected that the relationship between Brazil and the U.S. will gain new momentum. Bolsonaro had good relations with Donald Trump, but the same cannot be said for Biden.

In the past, Brazilian foreign policy sought to have an active position on the world stage. It built an agreement between Iran and Turkey on Iranian nuclear weapons, forged alliances with Africa, recognized Palestine as a state, and ensured Brazil’s international prominence while maintaining positive relations with former President Barack Obama.

With Bolsonaro, Brazilian foreign policy was like Trump’s, focused on isolationism. Now, some of Lula’s policies might return to center stage, with the country renewing the debate over a permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council.

Raphael Tsavkko Garcia is a Brazilian journalist based in Belgium. He holds a PhD in human rights from the University of Deusto (Spain).

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.