Brazilians go to the polls
In the first electoral test for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his plans to remake Latin America’s largest country, Brazilians today chose mayors and city councils nationwide.
Silva’s left-leaning Workers’ Party, which controls 204 city halls, has said it hopes to increase that number to at least 400, with analysts saying he is likely to increase his strength across the country.
But the real test will be the Workers’ Party performance in the 95 cities with more than 150,000 voters – those cities account for 40% of Brazil’s population.
With mandatory voting, turnout is expected to be high.
Political analysts say the elections will be the government’s first confirmation of how the electorate views its performance, and will exert a major influence in the general elections in two years.
Silva, a former metalworker’s union leader, became Brazil’s first elected leftist leader in a landslide election win two years ago, promising social and economic justice for Brazilians.
But in July, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets across the country to protest high unemployment and interest rates. Protesters at the time said they still support Silva, but they said they were disappointed his administration opted for a conservative fiscal policy aimed at reining in inflation and prompting slow, sustainable growth.
“I have a lot of confidence,” Silva said after he voted in the industrial city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, where he ros e through the labour unions as an autoworker. “The Brazilian people will choose the best.”
Cities with more than 200,000 registered voters may have to have a run-off election on October 31, if none of the candidates for mayor receives more than 50%t of the vote. In that case the election will be decided between the two top finishers.
The big prize is Sao Paulo, a city of 10 million and the country’s industrial and financial nerve centre, which alone accounts for nearly 8% of Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product that for 2004 has been estimated at $465.3bn (€375.3bn).
The latest polls show incumbent Marta Suplicy, 59, a Stanford-educated psychologist, technically tied with former Health Minister Jose Serra of the opposition Social Democratic Party.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second biggest city, polls gave a clear lead to incumbent mayor Cesar Maia from the Liberal Front Party, which is in opposition to Silva on the federal level.
Maia’s closest rival in Rio was Marcelo Crivella from the Liberal Party, a bishop for the evangelical Christian Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
Evangelical Christians have increased their numbers dramatically in Brazil, rising from 9% of the country’s population in 1991, to 15% in 2000, according to the Brazilian Census Bureau.
Winning the big cities is important for Silva because mayors are important power brokers for the 2006 elections, when Silva will be up for re-election.
If Silva’s current allies in Congress don’t believe his party can deliver the vote during their re-election campaigns, they may baulk at supporting his congressional agenda during the final two years of his first term.
