Brazil goes to the polls this Sunday to renew mayors and councilors for the next four years, after an aggressive campaign that came to blows, an outsider as a serious candidate for mayor of Sao Paulo and the shadow of organized crime.
According to the criteria of
Brazilians will reformulate the governments of more than 5,500 cities, two years after the most polarized presidential elections between the now president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
According to polls, Rio de Janeiro and ten other of the 26 state capitals could define their highest authority in the first round. When no candidate obtains more than half of the votes, the race will be resolved in the second round, on October 27.
The capital, Brasilia, has the peculiarity of not having a mayor.
The campaign took place without the most politicized social network, X, disabled in Brazil since August 31 under accusations of disinformation.
The elections occur when the country suffers record fires, fueled by a drought linked by experts to climate change. However, The issue of the environmental emergency was almost absent from the debates.
Lula vs. Bolsonaro
Seen as the prelude to the 2026 presidential elections, the municipal elections will offer an x-ray of the main forces in Brazil, embodied in the leftist Lula and the far-right Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
However, both leaders “opted for a discreet stance” and “the expected clash between Luluism and Bolsonarism did not materialize” in the campaign, according to political analyst André César.
Lula focused his patronage on deputy Guilherme Boulos, candidate for mayor of Sao Paulo, the largest city in Latin America with 12 million inhabitants.
Although Boulos’ dispute with Ricardo Nunes, the current mayor supported by Bolsonaro, illustrates the polarization in Brazil, the emergence of the outsider Pablo Marçal changed the panorama. According to the polls, there is a technical tie between the three.
In Rio de Janeiro, centrist mayor Eduardo Paes is a favorite for a fourth term, followed at a distance by deputy Alexandre Ramagem.
Ramagem, Brazil’s intelligence chief during Bolsonaro’s presidency, is being investigated for alleged illegal espionage of important politicians and other figures during that period.
Lula’s historic leftist formation, the Workers’ Party, does not hold any state capital and the situation could repeat itself. “Neither the political strength of the head of Planalto nor the good economic numbers seem capable of reversing this situation,” according to César.
Marçal, the outsider
In Sao Paulo, the influencer Pablo Marçal threatens to kick the political board.
Accused of launching fake news, Marçal focused his campaign on provocative accusations and mockery of his rivals that earned him expulsions from debates. During one of them, he was hit with a chair in an outburst of fury from an opponent, in what was known as “a cadeirada” (the chair blow).
Marçal, a 37-year-old former coach, gained popularity by attracting votes from Bolsonarism, evangelical sectors and young people with an aggressive speech, which appeals to “freedom.”
Alarmed with his rise, artists, intellectuals, businessmen and jurists launched a manifesto for “the useful vote” to Boulos to avoid a “tragic” second round in Sao Paulo.
This aggressive style is part of “a pattern” that appeared with Bolsonaro in the 2018 campaign, estimates political analyst Carolina Botelho, from the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Sao Paulo.
“Extremist political forces use this type of aggressiveness as a political weapon,” as well as social networks to “give free rein to this type of behavior without any rule of decorum or respect for democracy,” the expert told AFP.
The shadow of organized crime
The alleged presence of organized crime in the electoral process set off alarm bells for the authorities.
The president of the Superior Electoral Court, Carmen Lucia Antunes, considered that The attempt by criminal organizations to influence municipal elections is a “very serious” issue that “cannot be underestimated.”
Some initiatives were launched, such as action by the police and the prosecutor’s office to prevent possible infiltrations by applicants linked to criminal organizations.
This penetration of crime was linked to violence during the campaign: in recent weeks, three deaths of councilor candidates were recorded in Brazil, according to local press reports.
#Lula #Silva #Bolsonaro #municipal #elections #Brazil #stake