TeleSUR correspondent Brian Mier reports on the local elections in Brazil, in which voters will choose Mayors, Vice Mayors and Councillors in all 5,569 municipalities. teleSUR
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00:00And we go to Brazil with our correspondent Brian Muir for the latest about the local
00:05elections being held today in that country.
00:10Polls closed at 5 p.m. across Brazil today in all 5,569 municipalities where local elections
00:18have been taking place.
00:20Brazil has over 155 million registered voters, and millions came out today to choose their
00:27next mayors, vice mayors, and city councilors in a context in which more than 50,000 city
00:33councilors are going to be elected today.
00:36In all cities over the population of 200,000 in the country, if no candidate gets 50 percent,
00:43it'll go to a runoff election.
00:45That date is October 27th.
00:47But the electronic voting system is so fast here that results are already pouring in.
00:52Several people in major cities across the country have already been declared mayor,
00:56like here in Recife, where João Campos was just elected with nearly 80 percent of the
01:01vote.
01:02Other capitals across the Northeast and the North have declared victors already.
01:07And although the São Paulo race is going to go down to the wire, we're currently at
01:11a three-way tie between leftist candidate Guilherme Bolos, who's supported by Lula,
01:17and two right-wing candidates, incumbent Ricardo Nunes and challenger Pablo Marçal, a far-right
01:24social media influencer who used to work as a coach.
01:29Although the results aren't all in yet, some general tendencies are making themselves known.
01:35First of all, the big winners today are clearly going to be the center-right parties that
01:39have been running this country, basically, including through their families before there
01:45even were elections, for hundreds of years.
01:47These are local regional power coalitions that trace their roots back to slavery days
01:52in many parts of the country and switch parties at the drop of a hat.
01:56The big winners so far appear to be União Brasil and MDB, which used to be the official
02:03opposition party during the military dictatorship.
02:07Things are moving so fast right now that we'll probably have all of the results in within
02:11the next two hours, but for now, especially in São Paulo, millions of people are glued
02:16to their computer screens, glued to the TV news stations.