RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Incumbent Eduardo Paes was re-elected for a fourth, non-consecutive term as the mayor of Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, after winning an absolute majority of votes in the first round of Brazil’s local elections.
Paes easily fought off his principal challenger, Alexandre Ramagem, the former chief of Brazil’s intelligence agency under former President Jair Bolsonaro. Ramagem is being investigated as part of a wider probe into alleged spying on political opponents. He has denied the accusations.
Bolsonaro backed Ramagem, and his slight ascent in the polls in recent weeks was widely attributed to the former president’s campaigning on his behalf. But in the end it proved insufficient.
Paes received the support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In Sao Paulo, where the results are yet to be called, three mayoral candidates are running neck-and-neck, including incumbent Ricardo Nunes, left-wing lawmaker Guilherme Boulos and self-help guru turned far-right politician Pablo Marçal.
Much of the attention leading up to Sunday’s vote had been on Brazil ’s biggest city, where the race has been marred by episodes of violence involving Marçal.
Last month, José Luiz Datena, a former TV anchor turned candidate, slammed Marçal with a metal chair during a televised debate following references to allegations of sexual misconduct. In a later debate, an aide to Marçal punched an adversary’s counterpart, resulting in a bloody face.
Marçal sparked more controversy on Friday, when he published on social media a falsified medical report indicating cocaine use by Boulos. The document was widely debunked by local media that pointed to inconsistencies including the fact that it was signed by a doctor who had passed away.
Boulos, a longtime campaigner for housing rights who is backed by Lula, vehemently denied the veracity of the document. On Saturday, a judge sitting on Sao Paulo’s electoral court ordered the suspension of Marçal’s Instagram account for 48 hours and deemed that there are “indications of various offenses under the Electoral Code.”
Some of former President Jair Bolsonaro ’s political base has been drawn to Marçal, enthralled by his fiery rhetoric, although the far-right leader is supporting Nunes.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. Brasilia time and closed at 5 p.m. (2000 GMT). Brazilians were casting their vote to decide the next mayors, deputy mayors and councilors in the country’s 5,569 municipalities.
More than 155 million Brazilians are eligible to vote. Forty-three percent of the electorate is in the southeastern region, where Rio and Sao Paulo are located. Women make up around 52% of voters.
Nearly 1,000 transgender politicians ran Sunday in every one of Brazil’s 26 states, according to the nation’s electoral court, which tracked them for the first time. The number of candidacies tripled since the last local elections four years ago, when trans rights group Antra mapped them.
A second round will be held in municipalities with more than 200,000 registered voters where none of the candidates for mayor obtained an absolute majority.
Eléonore Hughes, The Associated Press