The Brazilian left remains in a critical state. If in 2022, Lula da Silva won the presidency at the head of a democratic front against the far right, the left was beaten in the municipal elections. The second round organized yesterday in 51 cities, including fifteen capitals, confirmed the bad omens of the surveys. Guilherme Boulos, candidate of the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL), supported by President Lula, was far from winning in São Paulo: 40.65% of the votes, against 59.35% for Ricardo Nunes, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement ( MDB), supported by Jair Bolsonaro. The Workers’ Party (PT) lost four of the five capitals in which it ran in the second round. His victory in Fortaleza, a large left-wing northeastern city of 2.5 million people, was won by a narrow margin over the candidate. Bolsonarist (less than one point difference).
One of the great disappointments of the left was the disastrous result in Porto Alegre, one of the birthplaces of the PT. Current mayor Sebastião Melo, who after his mismanagement after the May floods became known as Mr. Enchentes (Mr. Floods), won 61.53% of the vote. “It is sad that the floods did not have an electoral result,” lamented political analyst Fernando de Barros during the live broadcast of the influential Teresina Forum. The appointment of Maria do Rosário, a sacred cow of the petism with a high rejection rate, was harshly criticized for blocking the way for young leaders who had gained visibility during the floods. “There were many possible personalities for the municipal elections, such as deputy Edgar Preto, but the PT chose Maria do Rosário, as a sign of hierarchy,” said anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro-Machado in an interview after the first round .
Over the past twelve years, the left has lost half of the municipal councils it governed. In 2012, the five left-wing parties governed 1,468 cities out of a total of 5,565. After yesterday’s second shift, this number was reduced to 729. The slight recovery of the PT – it went from 183 to 252 – has a bittersweet taste. The candidates supported by Lula who defeated Bolsonaristas in important cities like Rio de Janeiro or Belo Horizonte, they are not left-wing, but rather so-called center. Paradoxically, Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) did not emerge as victorious from the electoral competition as hoped. The party leadership, which aspired to a thousand town halls, will have to be content with 517. It will only govern 4 of the 27 capitals. The Republicans, the party of Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president, will govern a capital. The numbers of the far right improve if the alliance of the PL with the establishment political, as was the case in São Paulo.
The real protagonists of the first election since Lula’s return to the presidency were a new extreme right led by Pablo Marçal (who was on the verge of the second round in São Paulo), a hostile climate with less judicial control of fake news. that during the presidential elections and the overwhelming victory of the Centrão political bloc (it will govern 3,500 municipalities, 62% of the total)
“Fake news” and violence
On election day, Tarcísio de Freitas, the Bolsonarist governor of the state of São Paulo, claimed without proof that the powerful drug trafficking commando Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) was demanding the vote for Guilherme Boulos. The left reacted in unison by announcing legal proceedings aimed at politically disqualifying the governor and elected mayor Ricardo Nunes. Tarcísio’s accusation overlaps with the disinformation that Pablo Marçal spread in the first round against Boulos, whom he accused of being a drug user. “I spoke with a constituent who thought I was manufacturing cocaine,” Boulos said a few days ago. In Belo Horizonte, the candidate Bolsonarist Bruno Engler based his campaign on fake news And He even accused his opponent Fouad Noman of encouraging sexual violations. The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which is no longer presided over by the iron fist of Alexandre de Moraes, the scourge of Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections, has failed to control the wave of disinformation propagated by the extreme right. The delay in the approval of the Projeto de Lei 2630 in Congress, known as PL de las fake news, harshly attacked by entrance hall of Big Tech and Elon Musk himself, have contributed to the climate of disinformation. “Lies and attacks defined this election,” Guilherme Boulos said in his first post-election appearance.
The campaign was marked by verbal and even physical violence. In São Paulo, candidate José Luiz Datena, a popular television presenter affiliated with former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s historic Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) party, hit Pablo Marçal with a stool during one of the election debates . THE cairné (sillazo) de Datena sums up the loss of the party that led the Brazilian right for decades and will not govern any capital or important city in the country. On the other hand, during another debate, an advisor to Pablo Marçal attacked the mayor’s publicist Ricardo Nunes with punches.
Self-criticism of the left and heading towards 2026
The left’s poor results sounded the alarm after the first round on October 6. One of the most critical voices was that of Marília Campos, re-elected with 60% of the vote as mayor of Contagem, a large city of 622,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte. Campos, one of the founders of the PT, completely questions the strategy, discourse and narrative of a left turned to the past. “To overcome polarization, we must present a Brazilian project linked to real problems. We have to stop talking about Jair Bolsonaro. The PT is leaning today towards an identity discourse, which only dialogues within a bubble. It’s not very universal,” he assured. Or Globe. For his part, MP Reginaldo Lopes, of the PT, insisted on the need for self-criticism of the party. “The PT cannot speak to society. The current government has excellent results, but it fails to communicate with the people,” the MP said.
For the political scientist Leandro Consentino, the attitude of Lula’s party consisting of ceding the leadership of candidacies to other parties did not have positive effects, even if this strategy succeeded in defeating the Bolsonarism in key locations like Rio de Janeiro or Belo Horizonte. “In large cities, the PT appears smaller, quite disjointed. This is part of a strategy designed long ago, aimed at gaining allies by 2026, but we will see if it will be worth it in the long run. It doesn’t seem like a good idea because it loses capillarity,” Consentino told Brazilian Post.
The municipal elections indicate some trends for the 2026 presidential dispute. The result in São Paulo, a contest that Lula himself described as a rehearsal for 2026, paints a confusing scenario. Ricardo Nunes’ victory comes with the highest abstention in the history of São Paulo in the second round, in a country where voting is compulsory: 31%. For his part, the figure of Jair Bolsonaro comes out exhausted. The winner Nunes, in his official speech, mentioned Bolsonaro in passing and praised Tarcísio de Freitas, whom he defined as a “great leader.” On the other hand, Pablo Marçal, the new outside from Brazil, appears with serious possibilities of being the most competitive candidate of the far right. The Quaest opinion institute confirmed a few weeks ago the division of the far right: without Bolsonaro in the 2026 protest (he is politically disqualified), the ultra votes are shared between Pablo Marçal (18%) and Tarcísio de Freitas (15%). In first position, Lula appears (32%).
At the national level, municipal results can interfere with left-wing alliances. In 2022, Lula formed a democratic front with few right-wing parties that seduced the center with a historically conservative vice-presidential candidate (Geraldo Alckmin). In 2026, after the clear victory of Centrão, the integration of right-wing parties into Lula’s democratic front seems inevitable.
