Workers' Party loses over half of its municipalities in Brazilian elections
Xinhua, October 4, 2016 Adjust font size:
The Workers' Party (PT) did poorly in Brazil's municipal elections on Sunday, losing over half of the municipalities it governed, according to the final results published Monday.
In the 2012 elections, PT candidates won 630 municipalities but this number was just 256 yesterday.
The election was a better success for President Michel Temer, whose Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) won most municipalities with 1,208, followed by the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) with 1,028 and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), with 538.
However, the PMDB suffered in Rio de Janeiro, long a bastion for the party. The outgoing mayor, Eduardo Paes, once a popular flagbearer, saw his popularity fall in the run-up to the Olympic Games and his chosen successor, Pedro Paulo, only finished third.
The PT suffered its worst result in Brazil's largest cities in the last two decades. It seized only one provincial capital in the first round, Rio Branco, the capital of the northwestern state of Acre, and will contest just one other in the second round, Recife, capital of the northeastern state of Pernambuco.
In 2012, the PT had won four provincial capitals, down from five in 2008.
After governing Brazil for over 12 years through the presidencies of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, South America's largest left-wing party is in crisis.
Rousseff was impeached in August from the presidency for financial manipulations and Lula is facing corruption charges stemming from the Petrobras corruption ring, which has already brought down a number of prominent PT figures. Enditem