Monday, October 19, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
POLITICS-BRAZIL: Mayoral Races Become Votes on Urban Models
Mario Osava
- The mayoral elections in Brazil’s major cities this Sunday will give voters a chance to choose between candidates as well as urban development models and governing styles, which largely pit candidates of the ideological left against the right.
At stake are the municipal governments of 31 cities with more than 200,000 voters in which no candidate won an absolute majority in the first round of balloting on Oct 1. In these cases, electoral law stipulates a run-off between the two candidates receiving the most votes.
Candidates of the leftist Workers Party (PT), the largest opposition force to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s centre- right coalition of parties, are in the running for most of Sunday’s races. They have a good chance of winning in 16 big cities, maintaining their hold on two of the largest capitals.
The significant advances of the PT throughout Brazil are due in large part to the success of its innovations in the cities where its candidates have governed.
In Porto Alegre, capital of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, the PT implemented the so-called “participatory budget,” a procedure through which neighbourhood assemblies take part in the process of designating the city’s funds.
The public’s approval of the measure, which seeks to deepen democracy and focus greater attention on social questions, has allowed the PT to maintain power for 12 years in Porto Alegre, and assure the party’s victory in the elections Oct 29.
The participatory budget process has also extended to other cities, primarily among those governed by left-leaning mayors.
In Brasilia, PT mayor Cristovam Buarque established during his 1995-1998 government the “scholarship-school” programme, which grants a minimum wage (equivalent to 80 dollars) to families who keep their children in the school system.
Similar initiatives became popular in numerous other municipalities and even the national government adopted it, with variations that included lower sums of money or providing a basket of food for the family.
Another reason for the PT’s success is the upstanding image of the party’s mayors, which contrasts with the widespread scandals of corruption and financial irregularities plaguing city administrations under other parties.
More than half of the mayors in some Brazilian states currently face lawsuits or parliamentary investigations for charges or suspicions of illegal activity, mostly involving misappropriation of funds. Numerous city leaders have been removed from office for such charges over the last few years.
The austerity of the PT mayors has been recognised by Planning and Budget Minister, Martus Tavares, who seeks the strict application of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, approved in order to halt the rising fiscal deficit and to establish sanctions against the politicians who violate the measures.
The year’s largest corruption scandal rocked the administration of the Sao Paulo metropolis, and is expected to return the opposition PT to the helm of the city, Brazil’s largest, with 10 million people.
Sao Paulo’s current mayor, Celso Pitta, was accused of tolerating corruption in the decentralised administration of the city. As punishment, legal authorities removed him from his post for two weeks last June.
Pitta’s activities in office were also the subject of a parliamentary investigation that ended up putting some of his advisers and city council members behind bars.
The Sao Paulo mayor’s fall from grace extended to his predecessor and political mentor, Paulo Maluf, who is again running for the mayorship that he occupied from 1993 to 1996. But he is lagging far behind PT candidate Marta Suplicy in the public opinion polls for Sunday’s vote.
A Suplicy victory seems almost assured, despite the large conservative sectors’ rejection of her feminist views and of her past as a sex counsellor on a television programme.
The PT governed Sao Paulo from 1989 to 1992, when Luiza Ernundina served as mayor, though she failed to win the support of the citizens despite placing high priority on social matters. At the time, the current style of running cities had yet to be consolidated and identified with the party.
In Curitiba, capital of the southwestern state of Paraná, a peculiar situation has arisen. The PT candidate, Angelo Vanhoni, who polls indicate as the likely victor on Sunday, is up against a successful urban government model, but one that is identified with a right-wing party.
Beginning in the 1970s, architect Jaime Lerner, currently affiliated with the right-leaning Liberal Front Party (PFL) and now governor of Paraná, implemented innovative changes in the city, prioritising environmental and quality of life issues.
The success of his governing style, which has won high approval among the local population and international recognition, has meant a series of electoral victories for municipal candidates allied with Lerner.
The PT campaign tactic has been to not challenge the existing model. Lerner claims that 77 of the PT candidate’s 88 proposals have already been implemented by the current mayor, Cassio Taniguhi.
The PT will not participate in the run-off elections in Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city in Brazil, where incumbent mayor Luiz Paulo Conde is up against his predecessor, Cesar Maia.
The two are fighting over credit for the successful initiatives that have improved the standard of living in Rio, especially in providing infrastructure for the poor neighbourhoods, known as ‘favelas.’
Conde is a member of the PFL, while Maia is affiliated with the conservative Brazilian Labourist Party (PTB), but both have leftist roots.
The PT is not the only party of the left that is vying for important mayorships.
The Socialist Party will participate in the run-off vote in Belo Horizonte, capital of the central-eastern state of Minas Gerais, and the Communist Party of Brazil is involved in the race in Fortaleza, capital of northeastern Ceará state. Both are among Brazil’s six largest cities.
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