Digital influencer Pablo Marçal saw his insurgent alt-right campaign to run Brazil’s biggest city fall short on Sunday. The former fraudster was less than a percentage point from forcing his way into a run-off round in São Paulo’s mayoral race, despite an unscrupulous campaign that drew condemnation from across the political spectrum.
Following his elimination Mr Marçal hinted he would run for the presidency in two years’ time. But he faces a potential ban from future elections after he published a forged medical report on Friday to bolster his claim that his left-wing rival Guilherme Boulos used cocaine. Mr Boulos will contest the run-off against incumbent Ricardo Nunes in three weeks.
Mr Marçal’s 28 per cent share of the vote in São Paulo highlighted a good night for Brazil’s increasingly fractious, social-media driven hard right in municipal elections. While he fell short, his ally, another far-right digital influencer, topped the poll for the city’s new council. But despite the broader success of the right, former president Jair Bolsonaro was humiliated in his political bastion of Rio de Janeiro. He had campaigned strongly for his former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem against incumbent Eduardo Paes only to see him humiliated as Mr Paes – backed by left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – romped to victory.
Left-wing parties performed poorly, making only limited gains after their disastrous showing four years ago. In the 103 cities with 200,000 inhabitants or more, just four of the 51 races decided on Sunday were won by the left. In the remaining 52 races that go to a run-off round, left-wing candidates will contest less than half.
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The Workers Party of president Lula saw its effort to recruit a new generation of candidates into the party provide limited returns. It is increasingly an also-ran in the big cities of the poor northeastern states that reliably delivered the votes that powered Mr Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff to a string of victories in presidential contests over the past 20 years. It also had a poor night in the industrial cities of greater São Paulo, the party’s birthplace, where it proved unable to prevent the drift among its traditional working class base to the right.
Though overall it grew its vote after a historically bad showing four years ago, the Workers Party remains far behind a clutch of right and centre-right parties that increasingly dominate Brazilian politics at the national and local level.
Sunday’s results will likely reignite the debate about the party’s future after Mr Lula – who at 78 remains its one star vote-winner – eventually retires.
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