Brazil goes to local polls in test to Bolsonaro’s power

Bloomberg

Brazilians are about to find out whether their popular president is able to get political allies elected in Sunday’s municipal vote.
The nation of 200 million is choosing mayors and city councilors in elections that will serve as a sort of a referendum on the first half of President Jair Bolsonaro’s four-year mandate. Polls opened at 7 am local time and were expected to close at 5 pm, with results being released shortly after that. About three-quarters of the population, excluding children and the elderly, are required to cast a ballot.
The far-right leader has thrown his weight behind dozens of like-minded candidates across the country, but those he supported in Brazil’s largest cities are trailing in opinion polls. The endorsements were complicated by the fact that Bolsonaro currently has no party — he ditched the one that got him elected in 2018 and has since failed to launch his own.
Yet he is fully aware that securing allies in Brazil’s more than 5,500 municipalities will improve his re-election chances in 2022. Several mayors and governors, who retain significant power in Brazil’s federative system, became adversaries this year as they imposed lockdowns, resisting the president’s strategy to belittle Covid-19 and maintain the economy open at all costs. “We need to have allies in as many cities as we can,” Bolsonaro said in one of this live Internet broadcasts last week. “It’s good for what we stand for.”
Lack of federal leadership during the pandemic helped make Brazil a global virus hotspot, with nearly 6 million infections and 165,000 deaths. Yet a $57 billion program of cash handouts to informal workers drove down poverty, cushioned the economic slump, and boosted the president’s approval rating to a record.
All that popularity, however, may not be transferable to Bolsonaro-backed candidates during municipal elections in which voters are often more worried about local issues.
Governors, rather than the president, are more likely to transfer votes,” said Deysi Cioccari, a political scientist and professor at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. The absence of a national ruling party makes it even more difficult for voters to identify the president’s allies, she added.