The polling stations closed as planned at 5:00 p.m. local time (8:00 p.m. GMT) and the results are expected shortly after. Attention is also focused on Saint Paul, the largest metropolis in Latin America and economic capital of Brazil, where more than 9 million voters are concentrated. The outgoing mayor Ricardo Nunes, supported by Bolsonaro, is favorite facing Guilherme Boulos, candidate of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The second round takes place in 51 cities: the largest ones with more than 100,000 inhabitants in which no candidate obtained an absolute majority three weeks ago. In Rio de Janeiro, the centrist Eduardo Paes, supported by Lula, he was comfortably re-elected for what will be his fourth term. But In 15 of the 27 state capitals there will be a second shiftwith a tight fight in nine of them, such as Fortaleza (northeast) and Cuiabá (central east).
In both cities the duel takes place between candidates of the Workers Party of Lula and of Liberal Party of Bolsonaro. In the Amazon capital of Belém (Pará, north), which will host the UN climate conference COP30 in 2025, a climate-skeptic Bolsonarist, Eder Mauro, is fighting for mayor with the centrist Igor Normando.
“What is at stake in this second round is the redistribution of the cards of power between the right-wing and center-right parties in Brazil,” already in the majority in Congress, Geraldo Monteiro, professor of Political Science at the University, explains to AFP. of the State of Rio de Janeiro.
“In the first round I voted for the candidate who did not go to the second round, (Pablo) Marçal. Now I am going to vote for the one who has ideas most similar to him, Nunes,” Vitor Camargo Reis, a systems analyst, told AFP. 33 years old, at a polling station in the southern area of Sao Paulo.
Marçal, an ultra-conservative influencer who shook the campaign with his provocative style, was left out of the race by a handful of votes and is now considering running in the 2026 presidential elections.
Municipal elections in Brazil: Ricardo Nunes is favorite in São Paulo
The institute’s latest survey Datafolha, published on Saturday, offers Nunes 57% of voting intentions compared to 43% for his left-wing rival. “I am very optimistic,” declared Nunes after voting in a school with Tarcisio de Freitas, governor of Sao Paulo and former minister of Bolsonaro.
Boulos, on your side, He went to vote accompanied by several ministers from Lula’s government, including Marina Silva, of Environment. Contrary to the first turn, Lula could not campaign with Boulos on the eve of the vote due to a domestic accident which he suffered on October 19. The president hit his head when he fell in the bathroom and the mishap forced him to limit his schedule to Brasilia.
Lula, who turns 79 this Sunday, will not be able to go to vote in his town of Sao Bernardo do Campo, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. Voting is mandatory in Brazil until you are 70.
Bolsonaro’s PL took over two state capitals in the first round and is now contesting nine. However, the far-right former president had a discreet presence in the campaign and one of his closest allies, the influential evangelical pastor Silas Malafaia, called him a “coward.”
In the first round in Sao Paulo, the Bolsonaro electorate was divided between Nunes and Marçal. The arrival to the head of the outgoing mayor was attributed above all to the support of Governor Freitas, who sounds like a right-wing candidate in the 2026 presidential elections.
Bolsonaro is politically disqualified until 2030 for misinforming about the electoral system, although he hopes to get the conviction overturned and run for office within two years. Lula, for his part, leaves doubt about whether he will run for re-election.
Source: Ambito
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