Sawt Falasteen - Brazilians choose mayors, councillors in bellwether election

As the prelude to the next presidential vote in 2026, the municipal outcome will serve as a bellwether of political sentiment in a country deeply divided between followers of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his predecessor, far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro backers stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court after he lost the vote in 2022, calling for the military to oust Lula and claiming, without evidence, that the election was stolen.

Bolsonaro, now under investigation over those events, remains hugely influential.

In Sao Paulo, Latin America's biggest city, he has backed incumbent mayor Ricardo Nunes to retain the mayorship.

Lula, for his part, has come out in support of MP Guilherme Boulos.

But adding a new dimension to a traditional political rift, outsider career coach and influencer Pablo Marcal has become a surprise hit with voters -- with polls showing a near three-way tie between the men.

Rightwing Marcal, a provocative 37-year-old, has brought chaos to the campaign.

Regularly accused of spreading fake news, he has been thrown out of several debates -- one of which saw an exasperated rival beat him with a chair.

With his aggressive style of politics, Marcal has attracted votes even from the Bolsonarista bloc, as well as Evangelical sectors and staunch opponents of "communism" -- a tag Bolsonaro has regularly tried to put on Lula.

Alarmed by the rise of Marcal, Brazilian artists, intellectuals, businessmen and legal scholars have urged residents of Sao Paulo not to split their vote and unite behind Boulos to avoid a "tragic" outcome for the city.

- Organized crime -

In Rio de Janeiro, centrist mayor Eduardo Paes is by far the favorite for a fourth term.

His closest rival, rightwing MP Alexandre Ramagem, has proven a controversial choice -- he is under investigation for allegedly spying on politicians and other public figures when he served as head of intelligence under then-president Bolsonaro.

There have been concerns raised over alleged organized crime infiltration of municipal politics, with the head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal warning of attempts to influence the election outcome in some municipalities.

In September, there were at least a dozen attacks on and threats against candidates for mayor and other municipal posts, and three deaths, according to press reports.

- Workers' Party decline -

The election campaign has taken place in the absence of Brazil's most popular political platform.

Social network X has been suspended in the country since August 31 in a disinformation tug-of-war between the Supreme Court and owner Elon Musk.

It also occurred as the country battled record fires and a critical drought fueled by climate change, according to experts.

Yet the environmental emergency confronting Brazil, from the Amazon rainforest to the Pantanal wetlands and beyond, hardly feature in the campaign.

Overall, polling does not bode well for Lula's Workers' Party which may, once again, find itself without a single state capital.

"Not even the political strength of the (president) or the good numbers of the economy seem able to reverse" the party's years-long decline, said political analyst Andre Cesar.

Polls show that 11 of the 26 state capitals, including Rio de Janeiro, could elect their mayor in the first voting round.

If no candidate obtains more than 50 percent of votes cast, the contest will be settled in a second election round on October 27.

F.Qawasmeh--SF-PST