By Anthony Boadle
BRASILIA (Reuters) -Sao Paulo Mayor Ricardo Nunes was reelected on Sunday to serve another four years in Brazil's largest city, defeating leftist challenger Guilherme Boulos in municipal runoffs that confirmed a rightward swing by voters that could shape the country's 2026 presidential and congressional elections.
Voters cast ballots in mayoral runoff elections in 51 cities, including 15 state capitals. The right and center-right won 14 mayoral races in the capitals - though hard-right former President Jair Bolsonaro's Liberal Party (PL) did not do as well as expected. President Lula da Silva's leftist Workers' Party prevailed in just one of those races.
Brazil's electoral authority said Nunes won with 59.5% of the votes against 40.5% for Boulos. Nunes was backed by Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who emerges as the likely standard-bearer of Brazil's right to succeed Bolsonaro.
The Sao Paulo race was important in setting the stage for the 2026 elections, showing that Bolsonaro's right-wing movement remains strong even though he was banned by Brazil's electoral authority from seeking elected office until 2030 for his baseless attacks on the integrity of Brazil's electronic voting system.
The electoral growth of the right has led to divisions in its ranks. In Sao Paulo, Bolsonaro supporters were split between Nunes, whom he supported, and far-right influencer Pablo Marcal, who has sought to position himself as Bolsonaro's political heir.
The defeat of Boulos was a setback for Lula, whose party won the mayor's seat in only one state capital, Fortaleza, in his political bastion in northeastern Brazil.
In the agricultural state Goias, the PL party lost the mayoral race in state capital Goiânia to the candidate of the conservative Uniao Brasil, who was backed by center-right state Governor Ronaldo Caiado.
Lula's PT party fared poorly in part due to his falling popularity and to his reluctance to campaign for candidates at risk of being defeated. A head injury a week ago kept him from campaigning in the closing days of the race. Heading a minority government, Lula has become increasingly hostage to a Conservative Congress in Brasilia to be able to govern.
"The new conservative wave underlines the dawn of a post-Bolsonaro age - and its leadership is up for grabs," risk intelligence company Verisk (NASDAQ:VRSK) Maplecroft said.
"Leftist parties struggled to assert their relevance, and Lula's absence from final rallies suggests a strategic distancing from a meager performance - even in the northeast, a traditional stronghold for his Workers Party," Maplecroft added.
The voting was held on Sunday in cities of more than 200,000 voters where no candidate secured a majority in the first round vote on Oct. 6.