The Brazilians voted Sunday for their mayors in the second round of municipal elections which are worth a test two years from the presidential election and where the duels of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have focused attention.
In a few big cities, like Porto Alegre, a progressive left embodied by a new generation of candidates hopes to win, while the Workers’ Party (PT) of ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva lost dozens of municipalities in the 1st round.
The Ibope Institute announced that it would not publish exit polls from polling stations, which had just closed. The results were expected around 10 p.m. (Monday 1 a.m. GMT).
These municipal elections – first electoral test at mid-term for Jair Bolsonaro – will give an idea of the forces present before the presidential election of 2022 where the far-right head of state is representing himself.
The traditional center and center-right parties came out of the first round of November 15 strengthened. Another setback for Mr. Bolsonaro, nine of the 13 candidates he had supported were beaten. In Rio as in Fortaleza (north), its candidates should be defeated on Sunday evening.
Without party for a year, Jair Bolsonaro “Is not in great shape for 2022”, believes political scientist David Fleischer of the University of Brasilia. “The federal government is a disaster”, believes a voter from Sao Paulo, Vanise Santos, “We want a government that does the job”, she adds as Mr. Bolsonaro’s denial of the coronavirus pandemic has earned him an avalanche of criticism.
Voters were encouraged to bring their own pens and had to vote in masks, observing the distance in the queues for the poll clouded by the epidemic that has killed more than 172,000 people in eight months in Brazil.
Some 38 million Brazilians were to elect for four years the mayors and municipal councilors of 57 cities, including 18 of the 26 state capitals.
Sao Paulo and Rio
In Sao Paulo, the economic capital of Brazil and the largest metropolis in Latin America with 12.5 million inhabitants, the outgoing mayor Bruno Covas, of the PSDB (center right), is the favorite, according to the Datafolha institute, with 55% voting intentions in front of Guilherme Boulos (45%), of the Socialism and Freedom Party (Psol).
Mr. Boulos, at 38, is the new face of a left which is trying to rise from its ashes and is seen as a possible successor to Lula, historical leader.
Contaminated by the coronavirus, he could not go to vote. In quarantine, he appeared on the balcony of his home showing off a sign “We are going to reverse the course of things”.
But Mr. Covas, 40, is also a fighter. He fights from his town hall against cancer of the digestive system and has as a mentor the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, likely opponent of Bolsonaro in the presidential election.
In Rio de Janeiro, mass is said for the outgoing mayor and ex-evangelical pastor Marcelo Crivella, promised a humiliating defeat in the city of 6.7 million inhabitants. He was supported by President Bolsonaro.
The former mayor Eduardo Paes (2009-2016), of the DEM party (center right) should largely win. “From tomorrow we will work hard. I will donate my blood, and all my efforts to get Rio back in motion ”, promised Mr. Paes while voting in Rio.
“We are asking for more security in the favelas and more work, with all this unemployment”, explained a voter in the large favela of Rocinha, Antonio Reinaldo.
The city of Recife (northeast) saw a family psychodrama with a very close and acrimonious fight between cousins and supporters of the young progressive guard: Joao Campos, 26, of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB, center left), and Marilia Arraes, 36, from PT.
In Porto Alegre (south) Manuela d’Avila, also young (39 years old) competed under the label of the Communist Party of Brazil, allied to the PT. She was in a pocket square with centrist candidate Sebastiao Melo.
The poll took place as the largest country in Latin America sees a second wave of coronavirus arrive, after having been plunged into recession and having recorded a record level of unemployment, with 14 million unemployed.
Brazilian cities are confronted with the lack of means in health – particularly glaring with the pandemic – education, public transport or housing, but also with debt, corruption and violence.
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