São Paulo, Brazil, Oct 27 (EFE).- Polling stations opened Sunday for the second round of municipal elections in 51 Brazilian cities, including São Paulo.
The elections are pitting mayoral candidates supported by left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro against each other.
Almost 34 million Brazilians are called to the polls.
The appointment is shaping up in many cities as a direct race between a progressive agenda promoted by Lula and the extreme-right embodied by Bolsonaro, who was disqualified from holding public office last year for undermining democratic institutions with false information.
The runoff is being held three weeks after a first round that passed peacefully and in which the center-right and right-wing parties were the big winners.
The local polls come two years before Brazil holds presidential and legislative elections.
The municipal elections will also serve as a gauge of Lula’s popularity ahead of the 2026 presidential elections, as the progressive leader has already hinted that he intends to run for reelection.
Much of the attention on Sunday is focused on São Paulo, where the current mayor, the conservative, Bolsonaro-backed Ricardo Nunes, and the leftist deputy Guilherme Boulos, supported by Lula, are facing each other. Surveys predict a comfortable victory for Nunes.
In addition to São Paulo, 14 other regional capitals are holding the second round of elections in their municipalities: Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Manaus, Belém, Campo Grande, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Goiânia, João Pessoa, Natal, Palmas, Porto Velho and Aracaju. EFE
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