The Brazilian left remains in critical condition. If in 2022, Lula da Silva won the presidency leading a democratic front against the extreme right, the left has been defeated in the municipal elections. The second round held yesterday in 51 cities, including fifteen capitals, confirmed the bad omens of the surveys. Guilherme Boulos, candidate of the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL), supported by President Lula, was far from winning in São Paulo: 40.65% of the votes, compared to 59.35% for Ricardo Nunes, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), supported by Jair Bolsonaro. The Workers’ Party (PT) lost four of the five capitals in which it contested the second round. His victory in Fortaleza, a major northeastern leftist city of 2.5 million, came by a narrow margin against the candidate Bolsonarist (less than one point difference).
One of the great disappointments for the left was the disastrous result in Porto Alegre, one of the cradles of the PT. The current mayor Sebastião Melo, who after his mismanagement after the May floods became known as Mr. Enchentes (Mr. Floods), swept with 61.53% of the votes. “It is heartbreaking that the floods did not have an electoral result,” lamented political analyst Fernando de Barros in the live broadcast of the influential Teresina Forum. The naming of Maria do Rosário, a sacred cow of the petism with a high rejection rate, was harshly criticized for having blocked the way for younger leaders who gained visibility during the floods. “There were many possible figures for the municipal elections, such as deputy Edgar Preto, but the PT chose Maria do Rosário, as a sign of hierarchy,” stated anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro-Machado in an interview after the first round.
In the last twelve years, the left has lost half of the city councils it governed. In 2012, the five leftist parties governed 1,468 cities out of a total of 5,565. After the second shift yesterday, the number was reduced to 729. The slight recovery of the PT – it went from 183 to 252 – has a bittersweet taste. The candidates supported by Lula who defeated Bolsonarists in important cities like Rio de Janeiro or Belo Horizonte, they are not leftist, but rather the so-called center. Paradoxically, Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) does not emerge as victorious from the electoral contest as expected. The party leadership, which aspired to a thousand mayoralties, will have to settle for 517. It will only govern 4 of the 27 capitals. Republicans, the party of Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president, will govern a capital. The numbers of the extreme right improve if the alliance of the PL with the establishment political, as has been the case of São Paulo.
The real protagonists of the first electoral contest since Lula’s return to the presidency have been a new extreme right led by Pablo Marçal (who was at the doorstep of the second round in São Paulo), a hostile climate with less judicial control of the fake news that in the presidential elections and the overwhelming victory of the centrão political bloc (it will govern 3,500 municipalities, 62% of the total)
‘Fake news’ and violence
During the election day, Tarcísio de Freitas, the Bolsonarist governor of the state of São Paulo, claimed without evidence that the powerful drug trafficking commando Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) was asking for the vote for Guilherme Boulos. The left reacted in unison, announcing a judicial process to politically disqualify both the governor and the elected mayor Ricardo Nunes. Tarcísio’s accusation overlapped with the misinformation that Pablo Marçal spread in the first turn against Boulos, whom he accused of being a drug user. “I spoke with a voter who thought I manufactured cocaine,” Boulos said a few days ago. In Belo Horizonte, the candidate Bolsonarist Bruno Engler based his campaign on fake news and He even accused his adversary Fuad Noman of encouraging sexual violations. The Superior Eleitoral Court (TSE), which is no longer presided over by the iron hand of Alexandre de Moraes, Jair Bolsonaro’s scourge in the 2022 elections, has failed to control the wave of disinformation spread by the extreme right. The delay in the approval of Projeto de Lei 2630 in Congress, known as PL de las fake news, harshly attacked by lobby of Big Techs and Elon Musk himself, contributed to the climate of misinformation. “Lies and attacks defined this election,” said Guilherme Boulos in his first post-election appearance.
The campaign has been marked by verbal and even physical violence. In São Paulo, candidate José Luiz Datena, a popular television presenter who signed up for the historic Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, hit Pablo Marçal with a stool during one of the electoral debates. The cairned (sillazo) by Datena summarizes the loss of the party that led the Brazilian right for decades and that will not govern any capital or relevant city in the country. On the other hand, in another debate, an advisor to Pablo Marçal attacked the mayor’s publicist Ricardo Nunes with his fists.
Self-criticism of the left and heading to 2026
The poor results of the left set off alarm bells after the first round on October 6. One of the most critical voices was Marília Campos, who was re-elected with 60% of the votes as mayor of Contagem, an important city of 622,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte. Campos, one of the founders of the PT, completely challenges the strategy, discourse and narrative of a left that looks to the past. “To overcome polarization, we have to present a Brazilian project connected to real problems. We have to stop talking about Jair Bolsonaro. The PT today leans towards an identity discourse, which dialogues only for a bubble. It’s not very universal,” he assured Or Globe. For his part, deputy Reginaldo Lopes, of the PT, insisted on the need for self-criticism of the party. “The PT cannot talk to society. The current government has excellent results, but it fails to communicate with the people,” said the deputy.
For political scientist Leandro Consentino, the attitude of Lula’s party of ceding the leadership of the candidacies to other parties has not had positive effects, despite the fact that the strategy managed to defeat the Bolsonarism in key places such as Rio de Janeiro or Belo Horizonte. “In the big cities, the PT comes out smaller, quite disjointed. It is part of a strategy conceived long ago, to gain allies by 2026, but we will see if it will be worth it in the long term. It doesn’t seem like a good idea because it loses capillarity,” Consentino declared to the Brazilian Post.
The municipal elections point out some trends for the presidential dispute of 2026. The result in São Paulo, a dispute that Lula himself described as a rehearsal for 2026, paints a confusing scenario. Ricardo Nunes’ victory occurs with the highest abstention in the history of São Paulo in a second round, in a country where voting is mandatory: 31%. For his part, the figure of Jair Bolsonaro comes out worn out. The victorious Nunes, in his official speech, mentioned Bolsonaro in passing and praised Tarcísio de Freitas, whom he defined as a “greater leader.” On the other hand, Pablo Marçal, the new out sider from Brazil, appears with serious possibilities of being the most competitive candidate of the extreme right. The pollster Quaest confirmed the division of the extreme right a few weeks ago: without Bolsonaro in the 2026 dispute (he is politically disqualified) the ultra votes are divided between Pablo Marçal (18%) and Tarcísio de Freitas (15%). In first place, Lula appears (32%).
At the national level, municipal results can interfere with leftist alliances. In 2022, Lula set up a democratic front with few right-wing parties that seduced the center with a historically conservative vice presidential candidate (Geraldo Alckmin). In 2026, after the clear victory of the centrão, the incorporation of right-wing parties into Lula’s democratic front seems inevitable.
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