City elections show Brazil shifted right but not far-right

Mon, October 28, 2024 

Municipal elections in Sao Paulo

By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Conservative and center-right parties were the big winners in Brazil's city elections on Sunday, but right-leaning voters preferred moderates to candidates endorsed by harder line former President Jair Bolsonaro.

The left won only two races in the 26 state capital cities electing new mayors in two rounds of voting that ended in Sunday's runoffs.


Four center-right parties, led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the traditional Democratic Movement Party (MDB) won the most mayoral races, while Bolsonaro's Liberal Party (PL) fared worse than expected.

The results underscore the complex legacy of Bolsonaro's divisive presidency, marked by evangelical and gun rights fervor, vaccine skepticism, disregard for indigenous rights and active encouragement of illegal mining and logging.

Candidates backed by the populist firebrand lost in large cities like Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza, and even in Goiania, the capital of farm state Goias, where Bolsonaro campaigned.

In Sao Paulo, Latin America's largest city, Mayor Ricardo Nunes won handily against Guilherme Boulos, the leftist candidate endorsed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Nunes was backed by Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who emerges as a likely successor to Bolsonaro as standard-bearer of the right.

Bolsonaro's support for Nunes of the MDB party was tepid and he hardly campaigned for him, because his strongest supporters backed far-right influencer Pablo Marcal. Marcal has sought to position himself as Bolsonaro's political heir, but he did not make it to the run-off between Nunes and Boulos.

"The conservative movement that Bolsonaro started in Brazil has outgrown him," said Leonardo Barreto, a political scientist at Think Policy consultancy.

Center-right parties want to have Bolsonaro as their ally because he draws crowds of right-wing voters, but they do not want his leadership, Barreto said.

Bolsonaro, whose own political future is unclear, lost political capital in several city races where his candidates failed to get elected, such as Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Belem and Curitiba, according to Andre Cesar at Hold Assessoria Legislativa consultancy.

"Bolsonaro's leadership is being questioned today and other names are emerging on the far-right," Cesar said. "But it was the center and center-right that won these local elections."

The big winner was the PSD led by Gilberto Kassab, who backed Nunes in Sao Paulo and whose party won more city halls than any other, making him a major player in Brazilian politics, Cesar said.

The municipal elections showed that Bolsonaro is still a fixture on the political stage, even though he was banned by Brazil's electoral authority from seeking elected office until 2030 for baseless attacks on the integrity of the country's electronic voting system.

His PL party is banking on Congress passing an amendment that would overturn the court order banning Bolsonaro for eight years, but the chances of lawmakers approving that legislation appear more remote after the local elections, analysts said.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Bill Berkrot)


Brazil runoff vote in city elections confirms right-wing trend

Updated Sun, October 27, 2024 


Sao Paulo mayor candidate center-right Mayor Ricardo Nunes meets with supporters in Sao Paulo


By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Sao Paulo Mayor Ricardo Nunes was reelected on Sunday to serve another four years in Brazil's largest city, defeating leftist challenger Guilherme Boulos in municipal runoffs that confirmed a rightward swing by voters that could shape the country's 2026 presidential and congressional elections.

Voters cast ballots in mayoral runoff elections in 51 cities, including 15 state capitals. The right and center-right won 14 mayoral races in the capitals - though hard-right former President Jair Bolsonaro's Liberal Party (PL) did not do as well as expected. President Lula da Silva's leftist Workers' Party prevailed in just one of those races.

Brazil's electoral authority said Nunes won with 59.5% of the votes against 40.5% for Boulos. Nunes was backed by Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who emerges as the likely standard-bearer of Brazil's right to succeed Bolsonaro.

The Sao Paulo race was important in setting the stage for the 2026 elections, showing that Bolsonaro's right-wing movement remains strong even though he was banned by Brazil's electoral authority from seeking elected office until 2030 for his baseless attacks on the integrity of Brazil's electronic voting system.

The electoral growth of the right has led to divisions in its ranks. In Sao Paulo, Bolsonaro supporters were split between Nunes, whom he supported, and far-right influencer Pablo Marcal, who has sought to position himself as Bolsonaro's political heir.

The defeat of Boulos was a setback for Lula, whose party won the mayor's seat in only one state capital, Fortaleza, in his political bastion in northeastern Brazil.

In the agricultural state Goias, the PL party lost the mayoral race in state capital Goiânia to the candidate of the conservative Uniao Brasil, who was backed by center-right state Governor Ronaldo Caiado.

Lula's PT party fared poorly in part due to his falling popularity and to his reluctance to campaign for candidates at risk of being defeated. A head injury a week ago kept him from campaigning in the closing days of the race. Heading a minority government, Lula has become increasingly hostage to a Conservative Congress in Brasilia to be able to govern.

"The new conservative wave underlines the dawn of a post-Bolsonaro age - and its leadership is up for grabs," risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft said.

"Leftist parties struggled to assert their relevance, and Lula's absence from final rallies suggests a strategic distancing from a meager performance - even in the northeast, a traditional stronghold for his Workers Party," Maplecroft added.

The voting was held on Sunday in cities of more than 200,000 voters where no candidate secured a majority in the first round vote on Oct. 6.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; editing by Diane Craft, Will Dunham and Mark Heinrich)