Brazilian municipal elections complete yearlong rejection of political left.
| Autor | Scruggs, Gregory |
Following a year in which conservative legislators successfully impeached an incumbent leftist president, Brazilian voters went to the polls in October's municipal elections and further fueled a tide of anti-left-wing sentiment. As a result, the country's two largest cities switched hands, with voters unseating an effective sitting mayor in one and rejecting a hand-picked successor in another. Sao Paulo's Fernando Haddad (NotiSur, Sept. 21, 2012, and Nov. 16, 2012) was evicted from city hall in the first round of voting in favor of centrist former businessman Joao Doria. In Rio de Janeiro, voters elected an evangelical bishop, Senator Marcelo Crivella, over a progressive state deputy.
Voter discontent comes amidst a rising economic depression, the worst in decades, and scandals that have rocked Brazil's political establishment. Bribery and corruption cases have ensnared highprofile figures, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), a wildly popular figure now facing criminal charges (NotiSur, Jan. 10, 2003, Nov. 3, 2006, Sept. 30, 2016). Da Silva's Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) ruled the national government for 13 years, but his successor, Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), was impeached earlier this year (NotiSur, Nov. 7, 2014, April 29, 2016, June 24, 2016, Sept. 30, 2016).
The PT party affiliation sunk Haddad, an academic and former education minister credited with reforming Sao Paulo's planning and zoning rules to reduce the heavy reliance on private automobiles and the prevalence of gated condominium complexes among the city's affluent.
In Rio, outgoing mayor Eduardo Paes (NotiSur, Nov. 8, 2013, Sept. 11, 2015, Aug. 5, 2016), who steered the city through this year's Olympic Games, could not persuade voters to select his candidate for the job, Pedro Paulo, and voters opted in the first round to advance Crivella, of the conservative Partido Republicano Brasileiro, and fiery activist Marcelo Freixo of the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade. Crivella then won the runoff with 59% of the vote to Freixo's 41%.
The PT also lost two mayoral races in Sao Paulo state, where the party was founded in the country's industrial heartland, and in Recife, the largest city in the impoverished northeast, where the party has its political base.
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