Brazil goes to the polls this Sunday, where citizens of more than 5,500 cities will elect municipal, state and legislative authorities. These are the most polarized elections in history, after the presidential vote between the now president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
According to surveys, 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 campaign was developed without the social network she was disqualified in Brazil since August 31 under accusations of disinformation.
Although Elon Musk finally decided to pay the fines and regularize the situation in accordance with the demands of the Brazilian justice system, the service has not yet been reestablished normally.
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.
Municipal elections in Brazil: Lula da Silva vs Jair 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).
Both leaders chose a low profile, so the expected clash between Luluism and Bolsonarism did not come to pass. The truth is that although in the municipal elections there are actors enrolled in these two major trends, alliances and proposals tend to multiply. that do not necessarily have a national correlation.
Lula focused his patronage on deputy Guilherme Bouloscandidate 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, lThe emergence of the outsider Pablo Marçal changed the panorama. According to the polls, there is a technical tie between the three.
São Paulo, scene of the Lula-Bolsonaro fight
The progressive Guilherme Boulos, candidate supported by the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the municipal elections of São Paulo, voted this Sunday and called to “defeat violent extremism at the polls.”
After casting his vote at a school in the Campo Limpo neighborhood, Boulos, leader of the Homeless Movement, said that the elections “were marked by lies and hatred” spread by far-right candidates.
“The challenge we have is to defeat violent extremism, lies, hatred, and make the truth prevail. “That is at stake at the polls today,” he said.
The mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Nunes, repudiated “the aggressiveness” and “the lies” of the “radicals”, when voting this Sunday in the municipal elections of São Paulo in which he aspires to re-election. Nunes, a candidate supported by former president Jair Bolsonaro, criticized the ultra candidate Pablo Marçal, whom he did not quote directly, but said that he has a “very high” rejection rate among the electorate.
“The electoral period in many moments was one of aggressiveness, attacks, lies and ‘fake news’ (…) We will be in the second round, showing that, although many radicals like this, the vast majority of the population repudiates the lies ”Nunes said.
Municipal elections in Brazil: when will the second round be?
In the 103 municipalities with more than 200,000 voters, there will be a second round on October 27, if none of the mayoral candidates exceeds 50% of support.
The only one of the 27 regional capitals that will not go to the polls is Brasilia, which is part of the Federal District and has a different administrative regime.
São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte are the three municipalities with the highest number of voters, with 9.3 million, 5 million and 1.9 million, respectively.
Municipal elections in Brazil: Pablo Marçal, the outsider who could generate change
In Sao Paulo, the influencer Pablo Marçal threatens to kick the political board. Accused of launching fake news, the network figure focused his campaign on provocative accusations and mockery of his rivals, which earned him expulsion 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).
Source: Ambito
